


AUgust Challenge - Lockwood and Co.

by WolfjawsWriter



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Original Character(s), Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-06-20 01:58:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15523572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfjawsWriter/pseuds/WolfjawsWriter
Summary: Its the month of August, and we're celebrating AU's.So, I've decided to celebrate doing the 31 AU Days Challenge, with the Lockwood and Co. fandom.I'll try to do as much ships as possible, not just one.





	1. Soulmate AU Locklyle

**Author's Note:**

> “Colorless” -  
> Lucy x Lockwood
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: Destiny can make mistakes.
> 
>  
> 
> Au: Soulmate

A soulmate is irreplaceable. You get one, one and only one, carefully chosen by destiny, since the moment of your birth. Once your future bonds are defined, you are stuck with whoever got chosen for you. There’s no changing them, no trading them, no replacing them. You were selected for each other because you are perfect for each other. Destiny makes no mistakes.

 

I was happy to think I had everything I would ever need in my little town of Cheviot Hills. I big family where, even though not everyone was too attentive, things were pleasant. I had a job as a ghost-hunting agent in which I was brilliant, and that promised a good future. But more than anything, I was joyous to know that my soulmate lived here. 

 

His name was Benedict Wentworth. We met at agent Jacob’s agency _(the local company)_ on one of my first jobs. It was Mr Jacobs who introduced us to each other; before we left for the case. The moment his hand touched mine, my eyes cleared: the colorless fog that blurred my vision of the world vanished and the word ‘love’ took a meaning to me. Benedict’s eyes shone with the same colorful enlightenment. His hands enveloped mine in a perfect grasp. It was, of course, destiny. Fate. Love at first touch.

 

We were inseparable. Ben _(he told me to call him that, or Benny, while he called me ‘Lulu’)_ was the sweetest boy in town; he endeavored himself in becoming my friend, on getting to know me, on learning about my life. Everyday he would talk and play with me, and during the night we worked together fighting the ghosts that threatened the town. He once risked getting ghost-touched for me. 

 

“This world is not safe for you, Lulu” He told me “But with some sacrifices, I can make this place better for you” He was only a child, but he was a hopeless romantic. He was my hopeless romantic. It was the most meaningful phrase I had ever heard. I couldn’t wait to be grown and marry him. Be his wife, be Mrs Lucy Joan Carlyle-Wentworth. We were both impatient. 

 

But destiny likes to play games with us. The Wythburn Mill incident can only prove that. 

Mr Jacobs, the team, Ben and I were there. The Changer trapped us inside the mill and got all my friends. Ben and I tried to ran in the door’s direction, but the ghost had us in place, our salt bombs did little against it and we were out of flares. Everyone else was gone, it was just him and me.

 

Then it was just me.

 

Ben pushed his rapier into my hand, placed a kiss on my cheek and ran out of the chains. The Changer was after him in seconds, and I heard him yell at me from somewhere in the dark.

 

“Run, Lucy! Run” So I did. I escaped the mill and ran as fast as my legs would take me when I couldn’t find agent Jacobs where he said he’d be.

 

Then the colors of the sky blurred and vanished into an all-too familiar murky grey once again.

 

The next morning all the bodies of my comrades were found, ghost-touched. Including my dearest Ben. My sweetest Benny. Swollen and dead. But I couldn’t see the purplish-blue shade all bodies turned to after being touched. The gift of color had been ripped from my eyes when my Ben was taken from me.

 

I cried alone that night. I felt myself be torn. The sweet little girl that got swooned with compliments and flowers lay broken and desolate inside me, lost in the grey and black of the world. And so, a new feeling was born in me and I left. Things packed in less than an hour, I took my rapier and placed Ben’s inside my rucksack, then ran for the station.

 

The next morning I was out of Cheviot Hills and in the colorless streets of London. I walked about the place and went to as many agencies I could find, in search of a job, but none of them would take a girl who hadn’t taken the last certification.

Until I saw a poster, flying around the street. It was a “Help needed” sign, from this agency called Lockwood and Co.

 

Oh well, it couldn’t hurt to try.

 

So I walked to the given direction, number 35 of Portland Row street in Marylebone. A nice house in a very nice-looking neighborhood. I was greeted by a bespectacled boy in a very grumpy attitude, and I wondered if I may have come at the wrong time. He told me, however, that I was just in time to be last interview of the day.

 

It took less than a minute for a scream to echo around the house and girl to ran out of the place while muttering a string of curses I could easily make sound like a baby’s version of bad words.

 

“Come” The boy in glasses told me as he walked away. I followed him down a small corridor and into another room, in which this other, much taller boy sat behind a table.

 

“Ah, see George, I told you there was still someone else” He said with a giant smile. His colleague only grumbled in response, however “Hello, miss, has George here offered you some tea already?”

 

“I was thinking about waiting to see if she stuck around” The bespectacled boy said.

 

“George, bring the tea, please” The taller of the pair said kindly, and the other, George, left the room with a grumble “Please excuse my comrade. You see, he was convicted the last girl was the last one of the day”

 

“I’m sorry” I said.

 

“Oh, don’t be!” Then he extended his hand towards me and smiled with great delight “I’m Anthony Lockwood”

 

I took his hand and gave it a firm shake, however, he gasped when my hand touched his. His eyes lifted from me and were filled with a colorful enlightenment I had witnessed before, his face showing the surprise he felt and then the joy. 

His eyes fell back on me and a smile stretched across his face.

 

“Miss,…did you-”

 

“No” Realization sank in me like a rock “I did not”

 

My sight was still colorless.

 

—————

 

All studies say destiny is a flawless force of the universe. Doctors assure fate is an entity of greatness. A being of all-knowledge. An almighty presence. Irrevocable, transcendent and above all kind of mistake.

Well, that’s a lie.

 

I looked restlessly for answers to my questions, but no one could tell me. No doctor, no researcher, no psychic, not even George could tell me; why was I the soulmate of two men, but only one of them was mine?

 

My sight remains colorless to this day, while Lockwood’s, however, has been colorful since we first shook hands. When it happened, it was almost like Ben was back with me, but in the form of another man; Lockwood was so nice, so attentive. He was constantly worried about me, always looking to protect me. 

 

I had been very reluctant to accept him, since our touch hadn’t changed me back. I couldn’t understand how it happened, and I didn’t wanted to love a man who had somehow skipped the rules of destiny. 

 

Nevertheless, Lockwood wasn’t going to let himself be discouraged by my stubbornness. It took him years and effort, but he snared me on with his charm. I soon saw him like I once had seen my beloved Ben.

 

Today, he is the only man in my life, even if I can’t see his by the colors he goes on. He can see mine, and he tells me about his, so I can imagine how handsome he is with the memories of colors I hold.

 

We weren’t destined. Fate didn’t think of us. Didn’t decided us. But we chose to stay together.


	2. College AU Skullyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Muse” - Lucy x Skull
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
> Summary: Inspiration comes from the weirdest objects.
> 
> AU: College

“Lucy”

“…”

“Lucy”

“…”

“Lucy!”

“…”

“Luuuuuuuuuucy!”

“What?!”

“Whatcha doin’?”

I looked up from the white canvas in front of me. Turning around, I was greeted by the sight of my roommate and best friend, Skully. His usual death-themed clothing, his spiky and longish hair hanging about his face, that stupid grin on his slightly-freckled face and the _‘Sirius Black just escaped from Azkamban’_ vibe he always had about himself.

We lived together in a small apartment in campus since both of us had not much better options. The flat wasn’t so bad; it had two beds on one side of the room, a tiny kitchen on the other with a stove, a microwave and a small fridge with barely any room in it.

The place’s rent wasn’t terribly high, but dividing it with another person was more economical, so I decided to give it a try. As to how he ended up being my roommate, it was all down on luck. Bad luck.

“I’m thinking”

“About life and love?”

“No, about what I’m going to do with this!” My hands flew before me, pointing to the canvas. Skully sat on his bed, looked at the canvas and adopted a posh and smug expression, lifting his eyebrows, pushing out his lips and grooming a non-existent mustache.

“That is a very interesting painting, Miss Carlyle. In fact, the best painting I’ve ever seen! How much do you ask for it?”

“Shut up” I grumbled and he snickered behind me “Its for my final project, I have to make a painting of something unusual in Impressionism style. Its supposed to be already finished, but-”

“You left it for the last minute?”

“Yeah”

“Lucy, Lucy” He mourned in fake sorrow “Will you ever learn?”

“Stuff it. I’m trying to decide what to paint”

Skully remained silent for some minutes, then moved on his bed until he was posing with his arms over his head and one leg outstretched.

“Paint me” He said.

“What?!” I shrieked, turning back to face him.

“Paint me like one of your French girls” He giggled in a shrilly, high-pitched voice. I threw a pillow at him.

“Stop playing, I’m working here! Besides, why would I paint you?”

“I’m a very unusual sight” He said it like it was obvious “Its not everyday you get to see such a beauty like me”

“I see you everyday”

“Consider yourself privileged”

“There are better things to draw”

“Ah, Lucy, you know there aren’t” He exclaimed and threw his arms in the air, adopting a new, dramatic pose “We both know I’m your inspiration, your stimulation, your muse!”

“I don’t have a muse!” I fought the embarrassed blush that crept up my neck “Now let me work!”

After that, Skully kept silent. I sat back on my chair and let my thoughts drift. I had already spent hours racking my brain to spark my creativity, but nothing came up. For some reason, I wasn’t being able to think of anything that satisfied my standards of unusual for a painting.

The white canvas before me seemed to keep mocking me silently as I debated my options, and slowly something seemed to start creeping into my mind. An idea forming slowly and taking form inside me.

I felt it shape inside my lifeless creativity and breath it to life. I felt it tickle my inspiration, stimulating it back to consciousness. It planted into my brain and kicked me into action. I knew what I wanted to paint.

An hour later Skully left, wether it was for one of his classes or to hang with his friends I didn’t know, I didn’t listen to him when he walked out of the room. I couldn’t be more bothered, honestly, even if he had gone out to sell drugs or commit a murder. The important thing was that I was finally left to the quiet of the room and my thoughts.

I had long since started sketching on the canvas. Silent curses and sometimes little song’s lyrics were the only thing that left my lips as my hands worked delicate lines on the whiteness before me.

When Skully finally came back, probably an hour after sunset, I had just finished retouching and correcting the final sketch. Opening my supply bag, I had only begun to take out my brushes when a microwaved soup and a coffee was placed on the nightstand beside me.

“You’ll need this if you’re going to be finishing that in three days” I heard Skully say behind me.

“Thanks” I muttered absent-mindedly. I ate my dinner in silence, listening to my friend laughing as he watched youtube videos on his bed.

I spent all that night making the base layer of paint with my oils, which made the dorm stank more than it usually did. Not that I minded, I already spent my days surrounded by that smell.

The next morning I suddenly found an orange waiting in my nightstand, staring at me in anticipation. So, I ate it. At some point I think Lockwood and George _(our dorm neighbors)_ came over with Skully, but I was too engrossed on my painting to notice.

The ceiling fan was later turned on in attempts to get the oil paint dry and to dissipate the smell, but I had no time to waste. So, I washed and prepared my brushes and blenders once again for the next part.

I spent that night making the second layer of paint, fixing first layer mistakes, and cursing as silently as I could so I wouldn’t wake Skully, when he finally went to sleep after watching many youtube videos like the previous night.

I guess I fell asleep at some point, cause the next morning, the morning of my last day, I opened my eyes to find my brushes on the table, my painting dry and a blanket wrapped over me. A note had been left on my paint bottles, sloppy handwriting and ink stains making it a little hard to read.

_‘There’s a bagel and a cold coffee on the fridge. Eat.”_

_\- Skully_

I snorted fondly. A very shitty breakfast, but one nonetheless. Its not like I had time to make anything better.

So, I ate my food and drank my coffee as fast as I could without chocking and resumed my painting, now applying shadows and lightning.

**——**

My back popped satisfactorily when I stretched, looking at my canvas in triumph. I had just finished my painting and still had a few hours before sunrise.

The room stank of oil painting, microwaved food and artist’s sweat; the smell of success. My tired _(and slightly hallucinating)_ eyes scanned the canvas, basking in its confusing artistic mysteriousness.

It was a skull set inside a jar, surrounded by some floating, misty green plasm. Outside the jar was a girl, alive and slightly annoyed-looking, her eyes focusing on the face that was created by the plasm, blending in different sets of green. The face itself wasn’t over the skull, but rather floating on top of it with a smug expression while looking at the girl.

It had taken me several tries to decide on their final positions, but honestly I felt like it matched what I had been thinking: the girl, in a way, though not an exact portrait, was me, younger but equally tired-looking. The skull, with its stupidly smug grin, was my friend Skully.

I looked away from the canvas to where he was sleeping on his bed. A tangle of limbs, loud snores and the occasional weird mumbles. His hair was a mess and I could see a dribble of saliva coming from his mouth, shining in the moonlight.

An un-majestic sight.

And still, an oddly inspiring one.

For more that I tried to deny it, he had become the center of my painting. In fact, Skully had somehow managed to become the center of all my sketches; long-haired dudes sitting in the streets or taking part in some sort of shady activity, skulls in different angles and stupid grins, sometimes even with stupid comments.

For some reason I couldn’t fathom, Skully had become a source of inspiration.

So, in a sense, I thought with a stupid grin of my own, he was in fact my muse.


	3. Single Parents AU Lockbinslyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Playdate” -  
> Lockwood x George x Lucy
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: Playdates are for everyone, not just kids.
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Single Parents

**————Lockwood————**

 

“Nat. Natty, wake up, baby. It’s morning”

 

I shook on my daughter’s small shoulder, careful so to not be too rough. She groaned under the covers and rolled over until she was facing me. Her small hands appeared from under the blankets and balled into fists, rubbing her eyes and yawning in that childish way of hers.

 

“Good morning, princess” I cooed lovingly.

 

“Morning daddy” She smiled sleepy. I sneaked my arms around her and carried her off the bed. Natasha wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder as I walked out of the room. Setting her down on the floor, she walked to the bathroom and I strode back to her bedroom.

 

It was a nicely decorated room with baby pink, plump unicorns trotting along the walls and fairies flying around them, with some birds singing as well. There was a big, white wardrobe and a boudoir full of stuffed puppies, kittens and more unicorns, of all sizes and colors, but mostly pinks and purples. My little Natty loves unicorns.

 

I opened the wardrobe and peered at the different shades of pink, white and violet that met my eyes, all different dresses, skirts and blouses. I finally settled for a soft bubblegum pink dress, white tights and shiny red shoes, which I laid on the bed for my daughter to dress with.

 

She came out of the bathroom, now awake and with her teeth properly brushed. I walked back to my room and went about dressing myself. Today was Saturday, so I didn’t have to go to work, and Nat didn’t have school or play dates with her friends, which meant today we would get to spend it together.

 

So, I dressed in a pair of slacks, a white shirt and my shoes, combed my hair and walked out of my room. Natasha was sitting on her bed, dress already on but struggling to pull on the stockings.

 

“Here princess, let daddy help you” I knelt before her and took the leotards on my hands. As I pulled and pushed the garments, I thought back to the first time I ever helped a woman with her tights. Deloris Wynter.

 

I met her back when I was in college; a young law student who tripped over a theater student on the halls. A fast encounter, not even long enough to count as one.Yet, that had been all I needed to be head over heels for her.

 

I looked for her all around campus like a mad man for weeks and when I finally found her, I asked her out and dated her. And we dated for long years to come. She helped me study for my exams and memorize my books. I attended all her concerts, plays and musicals. 

 

And the night of her last presentation in college, I sneaked to the dressing room while nobody was watching. She had been adjusting her tight’s costume when I entered. She asked me to help her accommodate the hairnet stockings. When I finished, I did did what I had come to do. I proposed. And she said yes.

 

We got married a few months later, after I got a stable job in a good firm. We lived together on our own for two years before we knew Deloris was pregnant. The second best surprise I was ever given in my life.

 

However, it was only a few months after Natasha was born that the worst surprise of my life got here. Barely after midnight, a hand gripped and pulled me out of my slumber. I was shaken from the bed by my wife, who gripped tightly at her chest and wheezed with every breath. Something was wrong. I took my daughter and my wife and drove to the hospital as fast as the traffic let me.

 

The seeming hours in the emergency were a agony; the nurses couldn’t give me any updates on how Deloris was, Natasha wouldn’t stop crying and the old couple that sat at the other side of the room wouldn’t stop bickering.

 

And when a doctor finally came to look for me, it was only to tell me my cherished Deloris had just died from a heart attack. Spontaneously. No sickness on any organ that could have caused it. No genetic tendency. No sign that could have helped prevent this. Just like that, after falling asleep while watching one of my Deloris’s favorite movies in bed, the pain came, she was taken from me.

 

“Will you do my hair, daddy?”  Nat asked me once her tights were correctly placed.

 

“Sure thing, baby girl, want me to make it a pony tail?”

 

“Half pony tail!” My daughter exclaimed as she ran to her boudoir and brought back her brush, some rubber bands and ribbons.

 

It took me months to get over my dearest wife’s death. Months of anger, of crying, months of neglecting my daughter because I thought I needed alone time to get better. But no, I came to realize the only thing I really needed was Natasha. She got me through.

 

“Done!” I proclaimed, adjusting the bow on my daughter’s dark brown hair.

 

“You make the best hairdos, daddy!” 

 

“Thanks princess! Now, let’s go make breakfast, shall we?”

 

“Yay! Pancakes!” Nat yelled and ran out of the room and down the stairs. I followed her down and into the kitchen “Can they be the chocolate chips ones, daddy?”

 

“I don’t see why not” I opened the fridge and took out the box of frozen pancakes “And, Natty, how about we go to the park today? We can go and look at the flowers”

 

“Yay!”

 

**————George————**

 

“Morning son”

 

“Hi dad”

 

Ben walked slowly inside the kitchen in his crumpled pajamas, rubbing an eye with his fist. In his other hand he held his favorite stuffed animal; a lion, without which, I knew, he was never able to sleep.

 

“You slept well?”

 

“Yes, and I finished my book!” He called out excitedly while taking a seat at the table. I looked up from my laptop and left it aside.

 

“And how did you like it?” I asked. Benjamin drank water from the glass that sat before him, carefully setting it back on the table. I stood from where I sat and started walking around the kitchen, thinking of what I could make for breakfast, after all, its not going to prepare itself.

 

“Well, I felt like it could have gone better if the Mr Addicot…”

 

As my hands got to work about making food, I focused on what my son was saying. Benjamin in some aspects was very much like me, for example his love for books, his insatiable curiosity and his unreadable handwriting. In some other aspects he was very much like his mother.

 

Silvia Ringrose.

 

Ever heard of ‘love at first sight? It was something along those lines, but we were more annoyed at each other. I had met her one night at a coffeeshop. I had been working late on a presentation I had to give the next day, and she had been arranging, fixing and rearranging charts for her finances project of the semester. We had been sitting right in front of the other without noticing, both absolutely engrossed in our computers. 

After some time, one of the waiters brought something one of us had ordered, but since we were both so absorbed on our work we did’t listen to what it was and we both grabbed it at the same time. 

 

From there, our relationship grew and became stable enough. Four years of dating each other while we finished our studies, and one year more after we graduated, then I proposed to her. I was love-dumbfounded back then and very content when she said yes without doubting for a second.

I let Silvia organize the wedding the way she wanted it, after all, party planning is not my thing, and I was fine with it as long as we did got married. For any men who’s not married yet, this is my only advice: never give you girlfriend absolute creative control over the wedding planning, or you’ll end up with a Kim Kardashian-level party. 

 

It was only a few months later that our Benjamin was born. We both loved our son with everything we had to offer. Or at least I thought we did. Only two years later did I noticed how Silvia’s behavior changed: some days she’d call me during the day to ask me to pick up Ben from daycare and at night she’d call again to say how she wouldn’t make it home in time. Most of those nights I was already asleep when she arrived and would only get to see her before she woke up for work, though some other times she wasn’t even home by the time the sun rose. 

Some other days she’d call saying she was home early, and when I got home she’d already be in bed, well tucked and fast asleep.

 

She had changed. My suspicions were confirmed one day when I arrived home. I wasn’t early or anything, this was a normal day for me. Benjamin was downstairs watching his favorite movie and eating candy. Apparently mommy was upstairs working with her friend. So I went up, and indeed, she was with her ‘friend’. Fucking on our bedroom.

 

A month later the divorce was signed and I had full custody of my son. Silvia walked out of my door without much as a second glance or a second thought.

 

“…and if Mr Addicot hadn’t tried to stop Sophie then she wouldn’t have ran away with the witch” Ben concluded.

 

“Yes, Mr Addicot was rather foolish, wasn’t he?” I finished making scrambled eggs and placed some bread on the toaster, then walked to the fridge “Milk or juice?”

 

“Juice please, dad”

 

“So, its Saturday” I placed the food on the table and sat down again “What do you want to do today?”

 

“mmmh…” My son’s hair was dirty blond and straight, falling on his forehead and close to his eyes, unlike mine which was sandy yellow and curly. That was one of the things he had gotten from him mum. His big brown eyes were mouse-like and he’d definitely look like a baby mouse if he was a bit chubbier “Can we go to the park today, dad?”

 

“Sure”

 

**————Lucy————**

 

“Mommy! Mommy! Wake up!”

 

The mattress shifted under me with new added weight and I felt as various figures moved about me. Two pairs of hands appeared on my shoulders and shook me insistently. I groaned in response and only shifted under the covers.

 

“Come on, mommy!”

 

The TV was suddenly turned on in the room and I heard the clicking of tiny things against the wooden floor as something else entered the room. Opening my eyes, I reached from under my pillows to the nightstand where a clock rested and read 10:28 a. m.

 

“Kids, its Saturday morning” I groaned and turned once more under my covers, resettling myself and closing my eyes once again.

 

“But mommy! We made you breakfast!” Now, that was concerning. I immediately sat straight on the bed and looked at the two kids sitting with me.

 

“You kids didn’t burn the kitchen, did you?” I asked them.

 

“No, we didn’t” The little boy said proudly.

 

“You didn’t spill anything, did you?”

 

“No” The girl giggled.

 

“And you kids did not set Bubbles’s bed in fire again, did you?”

 

“No! We were careful! We promise!” They raised their hands to their little chests and then offered me their pinky fingers of the other hand. I smiled tenderly and offered them my pinky finger.

 

“Alright then” Before getting up, Bubbles appeared beside me and jumped on the bed too, coming up to lick my face gleefully “Yes, yes, good morning to you too”

 

“So, come on then mommy!” My son, Freddy, jumped from the bed, took my hand and pulled.

 

“Ok, ok, I’m coming! Just give me a second” Pushing myself out of bed, I reached put my slippers on and let myself be dragged by my kids. Through the hall and down the stairs until we  reached the kitchen, the table set with three bowls ready, cereal, milk, a plate with biscuits and a jug of apple juice.

 

“Told you we didn’t burn anything” Rosie smiled at me.

 

“Thanks for preparing breakfast kids” I sat down between them at the table and served them. Bubbles came running from upstairs and immediately sat at my heels. I smiled contentedly at the sight of my children eating, milk dripping down their chins. And to think that some years back I would have done everything in my power to avoid a family.

 

The memories of my neglecting family had made me choose a single life, so when I started my studies as an art student, I decided to dedicate my entire existence to my art and nothing more. That got me successfully out of college with a bright and shiny future ahead of me. The world opened at my feet with open arms.

 

Still, like any sane woman with needs, I hooked up with many men, all of them from similar professions, and some times more than one of them at a time, but I never got myself involved into any serious relationships. I had no time for that.

 

Still, the inevitable happened. I got myself pregnant. With whom, I never knew and I didn’t cared. I was having a baby and I did not want that! I couldn’t have a baby, it’d ruin my career! That was all family was good for, ruining lives and making people miserable.

 

So, I made my decision. I’d have the baby and then I’d give it up for adoption. No questions asked, no father asking for money, no kids crying in the night. Problem solved.

 

As my pregnancy progressed, I found myself to be enormously inspired by the moods I was thrown into by the hormones. My paintings took a sharp turn and my productiveness spiked. I was in Artist Dreamland. Inspiration rolled off me in waves and I had nothing else to thank for than the baby that was growing inside me.

 

Then, when my pregnancy seemed to be going a little too fast, I was told I was carrying twins. That news scared me out of my mind: I had started to get fond of the little parasite, I knew, but now there were two. I realized with a heavy heart that I didn’t really wanted to give it away, but how could I take care of two kids on my own? Money was no problem, really, but I was a single woman, and proud to be, wouldn’t that affect the kids?

 

Before I knew it, my time for thinking was done, and I gave birth to a boy and a girl.

The new pride and joy of my life.

 

“I’ll go get Bubbles’s leash” Rosie chirped as she stood from her seat, leaving her bowl on the sink.

 

“What for?” I asked her.

 

“To go to the park!” Freddy exclaimed happily “You said we’d go to the park today!”

 

“I said that? I don’t remember” I said with a smirk.

 

“Mom!” The kids wailed in high-pitched voices. I laughed as they both hugged me and looked up with their best puppy-faces.

 

“I’m just kidding! Of course we’re going to the park”

 

**————Lockwood————**

 

The weather was very agreeable today. Not cloudy enough for it to rain all day, with a few patches of spring sun here and there, but with a promise of at least some drizzle in the late afternoon. 

 

Hyde Park was only a few minutes away by cab. I sat at the back with Natasha sitting beside me, her favorite unicorn plushie in her arms. She was looking out the window excitedly, signaling here and there with her tiny, chubby hand and giggling happily. 

 

The driver stopped in front one of the entrances and dropped us there. I paid for the ride and took my daughter’s hand in mine, walking away. The trees were bright green and fresh, the smell of wet grass lingering from this morning.

 

“Look daddy! Look at the flowers!” Natty pointed at the batches of pink, red and blue that out stood on the green “Aren’t they pretty?”

 

“Yes, princess, they are!” I said and swept her off the ground. My baby daughter screamed and giggled in my arms as I trotted blissfully on the path. After a few seconds of spinning her about I placed her on my hip and kept walking. She wrapped her arms and legs around me and placed a kiss on my cheek.

 

We kept going for a few more minutes until we arrived to the playground. There were kids everywhere, running around the place and climbing on the games. Some were playing on the sandpit and other laughed as they took turns pushing each others on the swing sets.

 

I placed Nat on the ground and kneeled down.

 

“Now, play nice with the other kids, do not be mean and remember to share Sugar Cookie with the other kids if they ask nicely first”

 

“Yes daddy” I hugged her one last time before letting her go. I watched as she ran to the sandpit with her unicorn in hand, then I moved around to find bench in which to sit.

 

There were many other kids in the playground, on the monkey bars, the swing sets and the sandpit, and some others playing on the grass with their own toys. Of course, the surrounding area was filled with parents like myself, sitting or standing, talking among themselves or silently reading books, some even had their phones out or laptops in which they typed furiously.

 

As soon as I found a place to sit from which I had a good view of the play area, I got a call from a client. I didn’t usually received calls on weekends, those were reserved for my daughter, but when I did got them, I made sure to answer.

 

I talked to my client, Mr Jacob Evans, for a while, until I noticed some of the kids were tumbling out of the sand with scared looks on their little pudgy faces. Among them, Nat ran out of the pit as well, still with Sugar Cookie on her hands.

 

“Daddy!” She called me scaredy. I got up to my feet hurriedly and took her in my arms “A boy is pushing other kids!”

 

**————George————**

 

“MOMMY!”

 

A shrill cry made all parents look back at the play area. Most of the kids were now running back to their mothers and fathers, or running off to hide behind the bigger games or trees.

 

On the sandpit, a small group of slightly older boys stood before three little figures. The first of the, a small boy in blue shorts and red shirt with a design of a robot on it, was standing challengingly before the older boys with tears running down his chubby cheeks, his tiny hands balled into fists. The other two sat on the sand; a little girl in purple skirt and blue shirt, looking like she just saw the monster under her bed come out. The last kid was Benjamin, crying freely and rubbing his cheeks, which were covered in dirt. I immediately rose to my feet.

 

A woman who sat close to the area ran up to where the kids stood. She looked between the two boys, then to the girl and Benjamin, then her gaze hardened like steel on a cooler.

 

“What is going on here?” She asked, her voice cold with anger.

 

“He pushed Benny!” The little boy rose a finger accusingly “And he was saying mean things to Rosie!”

 

“Ben?” I called him as I approached the scene. My son ran up to me and clung to my jumper as I got closer, burying his face on the fabric after I lifted him in my arms.

 

“Him, daddy!” A new, also frilly voice exclaimed. Another girl walked over, pulling a man, her dad presumably, with her. He too, like the woman and myself, looked pissed at his daughter was pointing at.

 

Not a moment later those boys’ parents came up too. Now calmly, the kids re-explained what happened and the boys were told to apologize by their parents, which they begrudgingly did. After that, they were taken by the hand, walked away and left.

 

“Are you ok, Benny?” The little boy in red shirt asked my son. In my arms, Ben wiggled a little until I lowered him to the ground.

 

“Yes, I’m alright” He mumbled.

 

“Yay! Then we can keep playing, right mommy?” He turned to look at the woman, who chuckled lightly while comforting the girl in her arms, apparently her daughter. Taking more time to bask in detail now, I noticed she wore some jeans overall covered in all-colors painting dots and slashes, a white blouse to go under it. Though loose and a little baggy, the overalls complimented her curvy and maternal figure, accentuating the wideness of her hips and her waist.

 

“I don’t see why not” 

 

“Can we stay a little longer, dad?” Benjamin asked, looking up at me with the same pleading eyes with which he always asked for a new book. Now, this was an unusual occurrence. I know perfectly well that Ben is normally picked up on by other kids, and this was the reason why he normally disliked coming to the park. That he had asked to come was already unusual.

 

When I noticed him playing with other kids instead of just staring at them playing, I was fully convinced this day would be out of the ordinary. Whenever he came up to me, telling me that the other kids were being mean to him, Ben always asked if we could go back home, a request I was always happy to comply with. Like him, I have always been a difficult person to socialize, though for different reasons.

Now, he was asking that we stayed, not that we left like we usually did.

 

I eyed the kids once more: the small boy in shorts and red shirt, the girls in skirts and nice shirts, and once again to my son in his khaki shorts and sky blue vest. Then I smiled.

 

“Of course”

 

“Come Rosie!” The boy called as he pulled Benjamin along to the swings. The girl wiggled in her mother’s arms until she was let down and went behind her brother.

 

“Can we stay too, daddy?” The other, slightly-older-looking girl asked the man who’s hand she was taking. Upon closer inspection, again allowing myself to bask a little more on the details, I observed how well dressed he was; black slacks, white t-shirt and dress shoes. His slacks were tight on his long legs, his shirt well tucked into them, also a little tight-looking. Not exactly something to wear at a park.

 

“Yes dear, now run along” He said and the girl took happily off after the other kids.

 

**————Lucy————**

 

“Anthony Lockwood” The man in coat-less suit said extending a hand to me, a wide and gleaming smile flashing. It took almost all ounce of self-control not to put a hand over my eyes to cover the way the sun shined upon his pearl-white teeth. He stood at least a head taller than me, if not more, in that tight-fitting suit he seemed so weirdly comfortable in.

 

“Lucy Carlyle” I shook his hand, then he turned to the other man and again offered his hand. He had a mop of unruly blond hair that fell on his forehead but not near enough that it covered his bright blue eyes. He wore a green jumper and some cream-colored pants that told me that, like my own, his sense of clothing was rusty.

 

“George Cubbins” He said, shaking his and my hand, then pushed his round glasses up his nose.

 

“Is this a common occurrence?” The tall suited man, Mr Lockwood, asked while looking in the direction the kids ran.

 

“For my son, yes” Mr Cubbins said “He is usually victim to bigger kids wanting to do mischief”

 

“My daughter too” I agreed “But my son, Freddy, knows how to repel bullies”

 

“How?” Mr Lockwood turned to me.

 

“By yelling _‘mom!’_ like bloody murder” I laughed and both men beside me chuckled light-heartedly “That always seems to catch them off guard. Then I appear and the bullies flee”

 

“No wonder why, I might have actually fled in terror myself” Mr Lockwood said while I and Mr Cubbins snorted amusedly.

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment, mr-”

 

“Oh no, just call me Lockwood! No need for formalities. After all, your kids seems to have befriended my daughter”

 

“Thank god they have” Mr Cubbins, or rather, George said with a heavy sight “I was starting to fear Benjamin would remain a hermit forever”

 

“Oh, my son finds friends even where there are none!” I exclaimed chuckling “His sister just goes along with him most of the time, except if she knows they’ll get in trouble”

 

“They sound like quite a pair”

 

“Our poor dog is witness to their mischief” Then I remembered. I looked back to the table I had been sitting in before Freddy yelled, and saw my bag with the notebook I had been sketching on open, Bubbles playing with a toy beside the table.

 

“Is that your dog?” Lockwood asked beside me.

 

“Yes, Bubbles, our puppy”

 

“What did your kids do to it?” George asked as we briefly watched the dog shaking the squeaky toy.

 

“They set his bed on fire after I left the kitchen to answer the phone” They laughed as they imagined the little white Pomeranian running away from a blazing dog bed.

 

In the end the three of us sat at a table and talked some more about our kids _(told some embarrassing and some not-so embarrassing anecdotes about them)_ and some other matters, until we agreed it was getting dark.

We collected our children and exchanged numbers in hopes of later arranging playdates for the kids to see each other again. Then we all took out leave.

 

As I drove back home and watched my babies dozing off on their seats, I thought back to the two men, Lockwood and George. I was surprised to find that when we talked I had been comfortable enough to share stories about my kids, which I normally didn’t with almost nobody. I preferred to keep the matters about my family to myself, but today I chatted and chatted like a teenager talking about her crush with her best friends.

 

There was something about them, I wasn’t sure what, that made me feel at ease. Something reassuring and uplifting that inspired trust and gave my stomach a giddy softness. 

 

For some reason I was excited to see when the playdate would be arranged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've liked this one too much, so, I am later going to make a series of this AU, for those interested


	4. Enemy AU Kipplyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Something” -  
> Lucy x Quill
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: A little something can be worth thousands.
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Enemy

The lone streets of London were deadly quiet at night. Some times uneasily so, but not tonight. 

Tonight was one of those nights in which the Ghost Lamps seemed to shine brighter, the sounds of distant cabs had a comforting hint and the chill of the night appeared less biting than usual. It was a case-less night for Lockwood and Co.

 

I had known this night would come since a week ago, so I took my precautions and did the necessary arrangements for tonight. Holly would be leaving soon; we wouldn’t be needing an assistant if we weren’t going to any case. So, from my place in the library, I listened to her bustling about with the final touches of today’s work.

 

“Bye, guys, I’ll see you tomorrow”

 

“Travel safe, Holly!” Lockwood called behind her as the door shut in the distance. He had grin in his face, one that only did appearances when we were on our own. One that he used reserved for intimate occasions. One that he used to show me.

 

I looked at the clock. 7:29. It was time.

 

“I’m going out” I raised from the couch, leaving the book I had been reading on top of it.

 

“Where to?” Lockwood asked without even looking up from his magazine. I grimaced.

 

“Out” With that I was on the rack, putting my coat on and adjusting my boots. Then I was out the door. My rapier, which of course rested its hilt on my hip because it would have been stupid to come without it, made a rhythmical sensation in my leg as it brushed against it with each step. The chilly air from the outside night grazed me delicately. It seeped under my skirt and through my stockings, leaving my skin goosebump-y. It made my coat flow softly behind me and my hair billow on my neck.

 

My jaw was firmly set as I walked about the darkening streets. Since Holly had become a part of the team, all Lockwood seemed to care about was her. Her ability to schedule a meeting with a client. Her capability to keep the house clean while we were working. Her skill at making tea! Everything revolved around Holly now!

 

But that is why I am doing this. I needed to get out. I couldn’t stand being with Lockwood and George while they praise Holly’s work like they had been doing this past weeks. 

 

My steps led me through the familiar city. I chose not to take a cab, the night felt too fine to waste by being inside, so I let my legs do the work. The shops were closed, whatever people that remained hurrying to get a cab that would take them home. Nobody wanted to be out in the open dangers of the night in winter, not even the agents.

 

With this of the Chelsea Outbreak still going on, the agencies were stretched to our very bones. You could see teams from Rotwell, Fittes or Grimble fuzzing about the establishments, some working with their chains and rapier and some others just resting from the non-stop work the outbreak had brought upon us all.

 

However, Lockwood is human and he knows we still need to rest so, here was I, on my free night, walking down the murderous streets in iron-hard determination. I wasn’t that far away now, to be honest.

 

After a few more minutes of walking, I finally saw my destiny clear between other buildings: a little tavern/inn, The Fearless Agent _(I know, what a name for a tavern, but the owners were very fond of agents and Night Watch kids from what I could tell)_. The pub’s windows were lighted with warm light that drifted to the outside. It was decorated on the inside and the outside to look like a place come out from a fantasy book. 

 

I entered the place and, like every time before today, marveled at the ancient-looking decorations; fake deer heads, rusted iron swords, wooden shields with painted coat of arms or bronze engravings. Through the speakers _(that were the only thing non-ancient looking in the place)_ vivid music with lyrics that reminded me of the songs the drunken men in the streets used to sing in my hometown at the hours before curfew played nonstop, cheering the mood of the tired faces that habituated the place. This legend-like atmosphere and the fact that this place remained open 24 hours a day, everyday of the week made it a very popular place among us night workers.

 

Amid the sea of heads and colored uniforms I found the one I was looking for. He sat on one of the booths by the farthest corner of the room, close to the stairs that I knew led to the rooms on the upper floors. His rapier rested against the wood of the seat, gleaming with the light. A cup of tea sat on the table, close to his hand. He was reading something, a book I could tell, which’s contents were paraded on the cover.

 

“Quill” I greeted as I sat before him. He looked up from his book, his freckled face abandoning the calm expression it bore and becoming a generous, genuine smile. A smile I had been coming to know.

 

“Julie” He greeted me back. I scowled at him, shrugging my jacket off my shoulder. He, however, only regarded me with the same smile from behind his cup, now risen to his thin lips “You’re in late”

 

“No, you’re in early” I replied. A chubby, middle-aged woman in long gown came with a oak-timber tray, a beautiful tea set on it. She placed the teapot on the table and cups, took the cup Quill had been previously drinking from and left, not without before setting a plate with biscuits between us. The smell of the tea came in heavenly warm waves from the pot, the scent of jasmine heavily drifting into my nose. My favorite kind of tea. 

 

I smiled sheepishly. He remembered. 

Of course he did.

 

“So, how are things with Tony?” Quill asked, placing a cup before me. I took a careful sip from the divine beverage, its warm liquidness warming me from the inside as the chill from outside still somehow clung to some of my bones.

 

“They are good” I answered curtly. Things weren’t good. Not really. If they were, I probably wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have been here the last times.

 

“I heard you got a new agent” He took a bite of a biscuit. They were the creamy, chocolate filled kind, one that was, of course, expensive. I was grateful Lockwood and George weren’t here; if they had, the cookie rule would have to be applied. But right now, sitting with Quill, I didn’t had to bother with that, I was free to eat the biscuits I pleased.

 

My lips pursed in a sour expression at the mention of our newest addition.

 

“No, she’s a secretary” I placed the cup in the table “She arranges the meetings and cases, keeps our supplies stocked and makes sure the chains and rapiers are in good condition”

 

“I see” He mused looking into the tea “So she hasn’t come to any cases?” I raised and eyebrow challengingly.

 

“I don’t think we came to talk about that” I snarked, my eyes narrowing. Quill’s smile turned from gentle to wicked. His eyes narrowed to a malicious shade. He bent forward on the table and propped himself against his elbows.

 

“Then what are we here to talk about?” He asked in a low, growling voice. His lips quirked upward ever so slowly. His demeanor turned playful. He was teasing me.

 

Between us there was an unspoken rule that we both followed in each of our encounters: the one who called the meeting sets the pace. When Quill called me, he could do all the foreplay he wanted, he could tell me anything he wanted and I’d listen before getting into anything serious.

 

But this time, I was the one who called him today, and thus, I was going to say when foreplay was over. And this chat ended now.

 

I grabbed the collar of his grey jacket and pulled him in, crashing our lips together. Our eyes closed. We stayed motionless for a moment, before I deepened the kiss. My mouth opened, and so did his, enclosing on each other’s lips once again. And again, and again. We finally parted after a minute of snogging, our eyes glazed with need and our lips parted.

 

“Should we keep making a scene here, or shall we take this upstairs?” Quill asked in a hoarse voice, his nose coming to bump mine “The room is waiting”

 

I smirked impatiently.

 

“What are we waiting for?”

 

**——**

 

The cold would start to dissipate soon. It was only two more hours before sunrise.

 

I walked on the dark streets of London on my own, the Ghost Lamps the only light that shined my path. The Fearless Agent Inn was now behind me, every step taking me farther away from its cozy atmosphere and closer to the menaces of the dark. But in my mind, I was still inside that lively inn, locked in one of the upper rooms with Quill, kissing each other until our lips were numb and we ran out of places to kiss.

 

In all our sessions we had never taken things farther than kissing, talking and just occasionally some groping. Never more and never less.

 

Since we first gathered privately like this, we had agreed it was something that could only go so far. We weren’t doing this because we had deep feelings for each other. We didn’t like one another and we certainly weren’t in love. This was only something to take desire off our heads.

 

Still, it was something. 

 

As I passed the empty shops, just like every time I came back from a meeting with Quill, my thoughts wandered back to him. The way he behaved on this little reunions, the way he talked with more eloquence yet provoking-ness, the way he kissed and held me close to him like nobody else would.

 

Goodness, if anyone knew of this, the things that would happen. Lockwood and George would probably hate me if they knew I was snogging around our company’s mortal enemy, our great rival, our biggest foe. And Holly would second them of course, because she’d think they’re right about it.

 

But the life of an agent is unpredictable. Unstable. Untrustworthy. We could never be told when we’d last see our friends or if we would survive another night. Most agents died young because of this uncertainness. I was only lucky to be alive now.

And thus I wanted to make the most of my time. I would have chosen to spend what days I have left to be with my best friends, Lockwood and George. I would have given anything for it to be like that. But now there was Holly on the job too, and with her around things just weren’t the same.

 

So, I allowed myself to look for things outside the company, and what I found was a Quill Kipps with the same goal in mind; the pursuit of something else. Something to come to. And we took each other as that something. 

 

It wasn’t the greatest something. It wasn’t love at first sight, by far. It also wasn’t a Kiss of True Love. It was nothing close to that, but still, it was something worth living for.


	5. Laundromat AU Cubbones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Batch of Grey” -  
> George x Flo
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: Never mess with the clean laundry.
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Laundromat

**————George————**

 

I’m gonna go ahead and say, this is my fault. It is, and I know it, I just don’t think anyone else needs to know. Which is why I have to do this.

 

It was supposed to be a simple experiment involving a source, silver powder and the stove. Flo had joined me since she got the source and wanted to see what happened. The process had a very slow beginning; the source didn’t respond to its closeness to the silver or the increasing heat under it. Not a single change.

 

Then it exploded.

 

Out of the blue, ectoplasm and sizzling silver powder jumped in all directions. Flo and I barely had time to duck before getting covered in it. The kitchen didn’t run the same luck, unfortunately. And neither did the basket of clean clothes that awaited for Holly. All the clothes in the basket got covered in silver and ectoplasm that burned new holes in the thinnest garments.

 

“Well, its time for me to get out of here” Flo had said about to slip past the door.

 

“Oh no, you won’t. We’ve got to clean those before Lockwood and Holly come back”

 

“Locky and Munro can’t do anything to me. I don’t work for him”

 

“But that’s his favorite shirt in the pile. When he asks, because he will ask, and finds out we did this to his shirt, he will set Lucy on us”

 

“Carlyle doesn’t scare me”

 

“That’s because Lockwood hasn’t set her on you before. If he tells her to, she’ll spend the night removing the dirt and sources of the Thames to find you”

 

“The ghosts would get her before she finds me”

 

“Not when she takes the skull with her they won’t. Ghosts barely come near her when that thing’s around”

 

“I can fight ghosts-”

 

“But can you fight ghosts and avoid flying sauce pans being thrown at your head? Cause she’s got a mean throwing arm”

 

It was this way that we both took the basket and ran to the closest laundromat to 35 Portland Row.

 

“So, how do you use this things?” Flo gave the machine a little kick.

 

“For a start, we don’t kick them. First, we separate the clothes in different sections”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because if we don’t the colors may get on other clothes” She rolled her eyes under her straw hat and huffed annoyedly.

 

“So, how do we separate them?”

 

“We separate them in whites, darks and colors”

 

“Ok” We got down to the task and soon the three loads began to gather. There were some jumpers, Lucy’s sweaters, some of Lockwood’s shirts and a few skirts.

 

“What’s this?” Flo asked, her grimy fingers enclosed to a long, blue sleeve.

 

“One of Lockwood’s coats”

 

“This doesn’t have the form of a coat”

 

“Then maybe one of Lucy’s leggings”

 

“Does she have more than two legs?”

 

“Ok, lets hope that thing’s either Holly’s or Kipps’, but it goes with the darks” Not that Kipps' or Holly’s clothes were usually at Portland Row, but there were times in which they would leave something that was particularly dirty or when they sometimes stayed the night and forgot something.

 

We resumed in silence, occasionally pointing out what came upon the clothes: some of Lockwood’s weird grandpa socks, one of Holly’s dresses, a few turtlenecks from Kipps, and some of Lucy’s undergarments.

 

“Never thought Carlyle would be the type to have lacy” Flo snickered as she eyed the red garments.

 

“Those are new, I think. I don’t remember seeing those before”

 

“You see her underwear?” It was barely visible that she raised her eyebrows under her matted hair and hat.

 

“Not as of recently. Holly does the laundry most of the time, and I don’t go around looking at Lucy’s underwear, Lockwood would kill me if I did” She just grumbled a response but didn’t insist on the matter. 

 

We finished separating the clothes and placed the color pile on the machine.

 

“How long will it take for it to be done?” Flo asked.

 

“Forty minutes” She threw her head back and groaned exasperated.

 

**——**

 

A good three hours later, Flo and I were just about to get the last batch, the whites.

 

“At last! I can’t stand here another hour!”

 

“Ugh, me either”

 

“How does Munro does this constantly?”

 

“She doesn’t, we have a laundry machine at home”

 

“What?!” She shrieked “Why did we came here then!” I turned to her and pointed to the basket now almost full.

 

“Because if the others saw those clothes covered in powder and ectoplasm we’d both end up in the hospital because of ghost touch and bruises in our heads made by sauce pans” I said, to which she only huffed.

 

I opened the hatch to find it full of clothes I didn't recognize.

 

“Is this the one we were using?” I turned back to Flo confusedly.

 

“Yes, the third machine on the fourth column”

 

“And we placed the white batch, didn’t we?”

 

“Yes, we did”

 

“Then, why are the clothes grey?”

 

We took the clothes out, and in fact, they were all grey. Lockwood’s white shirts were grey. Lockwood’s white grandpa sock’s were grey. Lucy’s underwear was grey! Everything was grey!

 

“Will they notice?” Flo asked worriedly.

 

“Well, its better than the silver powder, but they’ll certainly notice”

 

Without much more comments we took off, hoping that when the others noticed, they wouldn’t call it out.

 

Of course, we didn’t had such luck.


	6. Hogwarts AU Locklyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Spells and Potions” -  
> Lockwood x Lucy
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
> Summary: love is magic.
> 
> AU: Hogwarts

**————Lockwood————  
**

There is no place like home.

And when I say home, I mean Hogwarts, because there really is no place like Hogwarts. There are other magical institutions around the world;  _Beauxbatons_ in France,  _Ilvermorny_ in America or  _Durmstrang_ in Northern Europe, but none of them could compare to Hogwarts. 

I’ve been taking classes in the Witchcraft and Wizardry school for six years now  _(this is my sixth year)_ and each of them have been unique and memorable; all the classes, the quidditch matches, the pranks made to and with my friends, the outings to Hogsmeade. Great memories really.

Right now I was walking with my friends Lucy and Flo to the one class I was a disaster in: potions. I don’t know why, but I’ve always made my cauldrons explode, break, melt or transform into weird abominations with my concoctions. But let’s be frank, I can’t be blamed that much, Professor Snape makes me nervous with the way he likes to pace around the room, of course I get the mixtures wrong!

“Alright, come in” Professor Snape’s bored voice called us from the door just as we rounded the corner. We ran inside and took our places at the back of the room, Lucy sitting beside me. Whenever we had this class together, she would always sit beside me to make sure I didn’t created a poisonous beverage. That never happened but she also couldn’t stop me from making the potions wrong, no matter how much she explained it step by step to me.

“Before we start the class, and before Mr Lockwood tries to destroy my classroom once more, I’ll show you one of the most dangerous and powerful potions there exist” The man walked back from the door to the to the front of the classroom. His desk was, as always, pristinely accommodated with a cauldron, assortments of knives, various herbs, seeds and oddly meaty-looking items, and a magic burner, which was currently off “Keeping your hands to yourself, come and identify which potion this is, Mr Lockwood”

With a pat in my arm from Lucy, I stood from my seat and walked to the front. Professor Snape just raised an thin eyebrow at me, then pointed to the cauldron sitting on the desk. I peered inside it from a safe distance and tried to identify the objects beside it. Chopped asphodel, tisane, green anise seeds, angelic roots, cumin, fennel, aconite, wormwood. I had read of this ingredients separately before on the books, I was sure, but together…

“Is it a…love potion, sir?” I turned back to the man in black cape.

“Amortentia to be precise” He said slowly “But yes, Mr Lockwood, it is a love potion. Five points for Slytherin” I took a step back to walk away, but he stopped me with hand in my uniform “We haven’t finished here yet” Then, he moved to look at the rest of the class and pointed to the cauldron once again “Amortentia is the most powerful love potion in existence. It causes the drinker to develop an instantaneous and sickly obsession with the one who brew the potion, however”  He paused briefly here “It does not create real love, so it most be administrated periodically for the effect to remain, or the drinker will regain their free will. This potion has the particular characteristic that it hold a different smell for every person. Mr Lockwood, take a deep breath and tell us what you smell”

I bent down a little, still keeping a respectable distance from the cauldron so I wouldn’t somehow make it burst. I took a deep breath as instructed and my nose was instantly flooded with the most heavenly smells.

“Fresh toast, lavender, earl grey tea and…chocolate I think” I wasn’t sure about the last one, it was oddly sweet, chocolatey and caramel-like, but I couldn’t really recognize it.

“Now” He nodded and turned to the class again, his voice as bored as ever “We need someone else to smell it, any volunteers?” The room filled with raised hands, all of them female, painstakingly straight. I looked through them hoping to see the tiny hand I know so well, but Lucy was boredly gazing at the blackboard, reading the instructions for today’s assignment.

Professor Snape’s eyes glazed around the classroom until they stopped on a certain someone.

“If you’re not too busy looking somewhere else and ignoring the class, perhaps you could come and tell us what you smell, Miss Carlyle” He raised his voice harshly. Lucy looked back at him, a look of total annoyance on her face, and stood from her place.

Her steps were small and unhurried, her eyes never leaving the Professor’s, a silent challenge of authority between them, but he didn’t said anything but return the look with his lip sightly raised in a disapproving/disgusted grin. This made a small, angry bubble form in my stomach, but it disappeared once Lucy stood beside me.

“Closer, Miss Carlyle, unlike Mr Lockwood here, you won’t break the cauldron or cause a disaster now, would you?” Commented the Professor with a sneer. She looked up at me for a second, then back at the man in black robes.

“No sir” She muttered, took a step closer to the desk. Then she took a deep breath “Rosemary, jasmine tea…sugar cookies and…shampoo” She said this slowly, thinking through what she smelled, then stood aside, careful not to bump with me.

“Alright, you can go back to your places” So we did “It is said that Amortentia not only smells differently to each person, but it smells of the things one likes the most. Now, to conti…”

I zoned out on what Professor Snape started ranting, and thought of the love potion silently resting on his desk. The things we like the most…I could see how that made sense, since toast is my favorite food, lavender is the smell my sister’s perfume used to be, and earl grey tea, well, how to compare it, honestly. But chocolate? I wasn’t particularly fond of it like George and Lucy, I just ate a piece every now and then. Maybe I misinterpreted the smell.

**——**

“This time it wasn’t my fault the classroom exploded, Lucy!”

“Lockwood, I told you not to apply the Boom Berry after the Pearl dust, but did you listen to me? No!”

“I thought you said not to add the Goosegrass with the Pickled Slugs!”

“We didn’t even use Pickled Slugs or Goosegrass, Lockwood!”

“It was a mistake!” So yet again, the cauldron I was using exploded, and got us all covered in its slimy contents. Now, this gets funny because, one; the cauldron was made of iron, it couldn’t have exploded with just anything. Two; the potion was supposed to smell light and dizzying, not strongly of wet dirt. Three; it was not supposed to be slimy “But anyways, what do we have next?”

Lucy grumbled and huffed as her hand fished in her dirt-smelling, slime-covered bag.

“We have Defense Against the Dark Arts with all the other houses” She said, grabbing her schedule by the very corner with the tip of her nails so the potion wouldn’t fall on there parchment.

“Well, then, what are we waiting for, let’s go!” I exclaimed, took Lucy’s wrist and pulled her with me as I ran in the direction of the room. I heard her yelp behind me before chuckling and let herself be pulled. If there is a class I’m definitely good at, is Defense Against the Dark Arts.

We got to the classroom in no time and met with George and Holly, who were already waiting with the rest of their houses.

“What is that smell?” Holly asked, covering her nose and mouth and batting the other hand before her face.

“That’s the smell of Lockwood exploding yet another cauldron” Lucy said.

“I already apologized! And like I said, it was a mistake!” I semi-yelled exasperated.

“Let me guess, he used Goosegrass, Pickled Slugs or Jewelweed?” George said to Lucy.

“The first two”

“How did you know?” I turned to him. George cleaned his glasses in his sweater and replaced them on his nose.

“The smell of dirt, it is only created in potions by a combination of those” He said smartly.

“Ok, students, gather around!” Professor Sykes was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year. Reckon he would quit or be fired by the next one, no professor lasted more than that in this position, for one reason or another “Today we’ll be learning a very important lesson. Does any of you know what a Patronus is?”

Only George raised his hand, of course. His the only one that reads ahead.

“Yes, Mr Cubbins?”

“A Patronus is a positive force, a projection of the happy moments in our lives”

“Very well, Mr Cubbins, five points for Ravenclaw” Professor Sykes said and the students in blue ties cheered “Today, we’ll be learning to create a Patronus and that’s what we’ll be practicing the next classes of the week. A Patronus can have two forms; corporeal and non-corporeal. It is more common to have a non-corporeal Patronus, especially at your age, so I don’t expect that you all go out of this classroom knowing what form does your Patronus take. Be comfortable if the most you’re able to achieve today is a silver mist, that is more than what most wizards can make, even old men and women have never grown to know the true form of their Patronus”

With that, Professor Sykes asked us all to form a circle in the room, where he stood in the middle.

“To summon your Patronus, you have to say the words  _‘Expecto Patronum’_ as loud and clear as you can” He rolled up his sleeves and pointed his wand to the air, then yelled the incantation into the air, his voice booming loud and clear. There was a small silver explosion on the tip of his wand and a polecat jumped from it. Everyone in the classroom laughed. The small animal ran around the air, leaving a silver trail behind it, then it disappeared “Now, everyone, start practicing”

Soon, the classroom was filled with the sounds of people yelling  _‘Expecto Patronum’_ left and right. Lucy and George stood close, both of them repeating the incantation as myself, with barely any silvery mist coming from our wands. Only a few students had managed to get some grey wispy matter to come out.

“Come on people, think of your best memories! With your families, your friends, let those memories flow through your mind and fill you with their positive energy”

As instructed, I tried to think of the happiest moment I had with my family, thinking back to my parents, to Jessica, to the times in which we played as children, to the breakfasts with my mom, the times playing with my dad in the park, all so long ago. It only made a lump form in my throat and my eyes sting with the need to cry, a cold bitterness setting inside me. This memories weren’t going to work.

So, I changed the tactic and instead thought of my friends. Of my first day, at the train, when I met George on the wagon and we sat together, talking about which house would we end in and sharing candy. Of the day we were walking down the aisles to the garden where we found a group of older Slytherins pushing a Gryffindor girl of our year, calling her a mudblood, and we defended her. That girl was Lucy, and she became our friend after that. Of the times in which we walked around the halls after-hours, the times when we got caught making a prank for Kipps, all the outing to Hogsmeade. The first time Lucy took me to the kitchens with her and introduced me to the elves. That time in Care of Magical Creatures in which Lucy and I rode and fed a hippogriff. The letters I sent Lucy during the summers and the ones she sent me through my owl. That last day of school in third grade in which I bought Lucy a cat so she wouldn’t feel lonely during the summer, which she named Binx. The notes we sent each other at night when we were both at our respective common rooms.

My mood lifted, my insides filling with warmness and a genuine smile grew on my face.

_“EXPECTO PATRONUM”_

An explosion resounded on the room, silver coming in a shower of dust before silvery threads bloomed from my wand. The silver threads combined and cleared, allowing everyone in the room to see the magnificent bird that batted its wings and opened its tail with a proud scream.

“Magnificent, Mr Lockwood” Professor Sykes said, clapping his hands in admiration. Everyone else in the room clapped too and some even patted my back. I turned to see Lucy, who proudly clapped and smiled at me brightly “Does anyone knows what that bird is?”

“Its a peacock, sir” George called “Characterized by their long tail feathers, peacocks are proud and beautiful birds”

“Very well, very well, ten points for Slytherin and five more for Ravenclaw. Let’s see who can make the next Patronus, even the non-corporeal, that person will earn twenty points for their house”

That, of course, was enough to make everyone go back to yelling the spell into the air. I however, didn’t have to, and remained looking at the beautiful bird, which flew around the room and danced for a little while longer. Then it disappeared.

For the next half hour no one managed to make a breakthrough, even a non-corporeal Patronus was not yet seen. Professor Sykes seemed to be getting discouraged by the class’ poor progress, until-

_“EXPECTO PATRONUS!”_

The spell boomed on the room and once more it was showered with a silvery dust, silver threads coming out of the wand of its owner; Lucy. The threads closed and formed into a small body, which sprouted a tail a head and four longish paws while the body stretched a little. The class erupted in ‘awww’s when the animal stood in its hind paws and made a little squeaking sound.

“Very well done, Miss Carlyle, very well! The twenty points go to Gryffindor!” The students cheered as we watched the little animal scurried around the room “Can anyone guess what that is?”

“That is a mongoose, professor” George said with a smug expression, then nudged me slightly, though why I didn’t know.

**——**

“Seems like today has had quite the performances, wouldn’t you say?” George called a few paces away from me as he looked on the shelves of the library. At the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts class no one was able to top off my and Lucy’s Patronuses, just some Ravenclaw that managed to do a silver mist before the class ended. George had been in a amazing mood since then, and I couldn’t fathom why.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” I replied from the table. The bespectacled blond looked back at me with a smile he only had when he made a major breakthrough in any of his researches.

“You do know, you’re just not thinking hard enough” He sat down, opening the book he brought “First, potions class-”

“I already said it was an accident!” I groaned.

“I wasn’t talking about the exploded cauldron, moron, I’m talking about the Amortentia potion”

“What about it?” George looked up from the book and to me with a serious expression.

“What did you said you smelt on the potion?” I thought back to those divine smells coming from the cauldron in Professor Snape’s desk.

“Lavender, toast, earl grey and chocolate, or caramel, I couldn’t identify that one” I said confusedly. He hummed somewhat amused.

“Do you remember what Professor Snape said about the smells?”

“That they are different for each person?”

“That they remind us of things we love. But you don’t like chocolate or caramel, do you?” The George leaned in “Lucy’s favorite kind of chocolate is caramel filled” I made the slow connection in my mind and fought the blush that threatened to come up my face.

“Yes, well- Lucy is my friend!” I exclaimed embarrassed.

“And do you remember what animal was Lucy’s Patronus?” He asked with the same smug and stupid smirk.

“A mongoose” I replied.

“Did you know that a Patronus can mean or signal what we like?” He asked, pushing his glasses up his nose “They can change to the animal our loved one’s was or something related to that animal, like a common predator or prey” With that, George pushed the open book into my arms, stood and walked away to find another book.

I looked down to the open page to see it was a biology book, opened on the section of small carnivores, specifically the mongoose. So, I read it.

_‘Mongooses are incredibly alike mustelids, with long bodies, longish head, small ears and long tail (…) Their usual colors is brown motted with darker shades of the same color (…) They are immune to snake venom (…) A mongoose diet consists of insects, crabs, lizard, snakes and big birds, such as ducks and peacocks, which are natural enemies’_

My mind clicked. I am a Slytherin. Lucy’s favorite chocolate is caramel filled. My Patronus is a peacock. Peacocks and mongooses are each other’s predators. My Patronus appeared when I started thinking about Lucy. Could it be…

Did I…liked Lucy Carlyle?


	7. Famous AU Lockbins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Special dish”-  
> George x Lockwood
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: Never mess with the star of the show.
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Famous

**————George————**

 

“Ok everyone, we are going to be filming act 3, scene 7, I need all actors on the on their positions, we don’t have all day, so move it people!”

 

Its not easy to work in a movies studio; all the divas walking around, the director yelling to the background and sound crews, the makeup artist running around telling the actors their makeup and hair are not done yet. Its a crazy world full of crazy people. Rich people, mostly, but crazy for power and fame.

 

The kitchens, however, are a little different. None of us are culinary experts, no aesthetic artists, no power-hunger workers. Only chefs. Simple people with simple jobs. That is, until the director sends his instructions.

 

“George” Lucy, the director’s assistant greeted. Lucy’s job is simple, like mine; she has to carry around the director’s orders, make sure things were done in time, that the actor’s petitions were accomplished _(if they were reasonable petitions)_ , basically that the place was still standing by the end of the day. One of her jobs was to make sure us chefs cooked what the director and actors ordered.

 

“Lucy” Even though she and I argued almost every time we saw each other, I preferred when she was the one to come deliver the day’s menu. Lucy did not worked here because she wanted a big name for herself, if she was she wouldn’t be assistant director. She was a simple woman doing her job to the best of her capacity, which could reach man-scaring levels of authoritative manner.

 

“Here’s the requested menu of the day, and a list of what must be avoided, plus the director says he wants a coffee, no sugar, just a tea spoon of cream, in his desk by the stage, pronto!” She yelled the last part to where the cooks awaited instructions. They immediately took the list from her hands and got to work.

 

“Anything else?” I said turning to do my job.

 

“Not much, but if any interesting gossip pops up I’ll come” 

 

“Thaaaaanks Lucy” With that, she turned around and walked out of the kitchen. 

 

Like that, with our list of instructions, the kitchen burst into life: the smells of oil, spices and beef flooded the air, the sound of grilling covering our voices, heat came from the stoves and ovens. A normal day in my kitchen. Yes, my kitchen, I’m the chef.

 

A while later, a trolley was brought by a guy with fiery red hair and lots of freckles and a black turtleneck. I wasn’t sure who he was, we had never talked, all I know is that he brought the trolley in and out of this kitchen and to the set, every day, various times a day.

 

Soon, every dish in the list was loaded into the trolley, including my speciality dish; strawberry jam buns with lemon crème. I wasn’t sure who asked for that one, what I did know was that it was the same person, Lucy had told me that much. 

The trolley was taken away a few seconds later, and the kitchen’s life died away. The stoves and ovens were turned off, the spare ingredients were replaced on the fridge and pantry, and the heat dissipated. The cooks washed their hands and took of their bandanas, and so did I.

 

It was a while later that hell broke loose on the set, but being on the kitchens, which are not exactly close, I couldn’t have known of what was happening. The first thing that happened was that Lucy ran into the kitchen, no clipboard on her hands.

 

“George!” She called. Me and all the cooks turned to look at her as she came towards us, hurriedly and out of breath “George!” 

 

“Lucy, what is-”

 

“George, I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but he-” A crash was heard outside and then someone yelling. I looked at her again, but her gaze was now fixed on the door, her voice now calm, uneasily so “Tell him you didn’t do it”

 

“Where is the chef?!” The voice of the director, Mr Rotwell, boomed just outside and then the doors opened with a blast. The man stomped his way inside, slamming things out of his way “Mr Cubbins!”

 

“Mr Rotwell” I squared my shoulders, as did Lucy beside me. All my cooks cowered behind us, careful to stay away from the director’s anger “What can I do for you?”

 

“You, sir, dare to speak to me after what you’ve done? Poisoning an actor, very effective, Mr Cubbins, very effective, who would ever blame the cook! It is obvious you’ve learnt a few things from working in this studios!” I blinked confusedly behind my glasses. From behind the man I saw the door open once again to see two people walk inside, a lot calmer than how the director had done it.

 

“Mr Rotwell, I have no idea what you are talking about, we would never try to poison an actor or anyone else in this studio”

 

“Then how can you explain the reaction Mr Shaw suffered just minutes ago. His entire face went red, his throat was closing, Mr Cubbins!”

 

“Mr Rotwell” Lucy took a step forward “There is no proof that George-”

 

“Miss Carlyle” His head took a sharp turn to her, harshly shutting her “I would recommend you stay out of this, wether you and Mr Cubbins share a reason why you wish to support him, keep it to yourself. Calling this man by his first name; such unprofessionalism, such nerve, from you of all people, Miss Carlyle” Her cheeks turned red in embarrassment at the man’s false implications. He turned back at me “As for you, chef, take your things and get out of my sight before you try to poison anymore of my staff! Or anyone in this studio for that matter!”

 

I shook with anger and I felt like my eyes would pop from the way I looked at the man. I hadn’t done any poisoning to anyone, even though there are many people in this studio that I’ve have loved to poison over the years, Lucy, for example, when I first met her. Still, I had never done it, and I wasn’t about to start with some minor actor I barely knew. 

 

However, there was nothing I could do. I knew it. Lucy knew it. The cooks knew it. Everyone knew it. Once Mr Rotwell said you were out, you were never getting back in. I had seen countless people from all the crews get fired: sound crew, costume crew, makeup and hair crew, even other cooks! I had seen of everything get kicked out of this buildings during all my years as a cook here, and I always remained thankful that wasn’t me. This work offered very good pay and it allowed me to do what I like most _(plus, I get to boss people around since I’m the chef)_.

 

But now. Now I was the one getting kicked out. 

 

“Ve-”

 

“Excuse me” 

 

Mr Rotwell had been about to raise his voice at me when the new voice appeared. It wasn’t Lucy’s. It also wasn’t one of the cooks, I knew all their voices by heart. Then I remembered the man and woman that were standing beside the door.

 

“Excuse me” The man said again. Mr Rotwell turned around and made his best attempt at a smile.

 

“Oh, Mr Lockwood, Miss Munro! I hadn’t noticed you were there! I am so absolutely sorry you had to see that, I promise this won’t happen again, but you’ll understand-”

 

“Excuse me, Miss Carlyle?” The man ignored the director _(something that was never encouraged to do)_ and turned right at Lucy “Is this the man you told me about?” 

 

It took her a few moments to process the question, then she looked between Mr Rotwell and me and back to the man in the door.

 

“Yes, Mr Lockwood” She said “This is Mr George Cubbins, the chef you asked me about”

 

He nodded in acknowledgment, then finally turned to Mr Rotwell, who was slightly gaping, probably shocked for being ignored for the first time in his career.

 

“Mr Rotwell, you cannot fire this man” He said.

 

“Oh, Mr Lockwood, you’re a kind-hearted mind indeed, you most certainly are, but I can’t do that” He paused to adjust his tie “You see, this man just tried to poison someone, you and Miss Munro saw when they took Mr Shaw away, an dreadful scene if you ask me, honestly. I most dispose of this man before he tries anything else like this on another of my staff”

 

“He can’t be fired” The man, Mr Lockwood, said again. 

 

Now, looking a little closer, I saw he was tall, really tall. He had floppy hair, messily done, but also perfectly held together. His face was slender, his nose aquiline, his eyebrows thin and elegant. In fact, everything about him was slender and elegant. He crossed his arms in a way I remembered Lucy describing as _‘the bothered diva’_ , which meant he was an actor because no one else of any other crew would make such gesture.

 

“You cannot fire this man, Mr Rotwell, you see, how am I supposed to get strawberry jam buns with lemon crème if the chef is not here to make them for me?” He asked waving his hand in the air and looking like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

 

“Oh, Mr Lockwood, we can always hire another chef for your-”

 

“Yes, you see, director, I don’t want any chef other than Mr George Cubbins” He said, his voice filled with arrogance “I have already tasted his food, and I just cannot trust someone to prepare that dish for me, it just wouldn’t be the same!”

 

I was told it is very common to see Mr Rotwell annoyed at the diva roles the actors loved to do to get away with their nonsense, though right now the director looked like he wanted to strangle someone. I peered at Lucy beside me, thinking she’d also be annoyed, at least that’s how she always looked when she told me about the actor’s behavior. However, she seemed to be greatly enjoying herself, looking like she was about to crack up laughing, biting her lip so hand her skin looked a little white.

 

“Mr Lockwood, I totally understand your petition, its nothing but reasonable, but I can’t afford-”

 

“Miss Carlyle, you did say there wasn’t enough proof that the chef here tried to poison poor Ned Shaw, right?”

 

“Yes, sir, that’s correct”

 

“Well there you have it, Mr Rotwell, how can you be so sure it was Mr Cubbins, if there aren’t enough facts, you cannot fire him” 

 

“But I must, Mr Lockwood, I cannot afford to have this man try to commit another murder” The director looked at the actor in hopes he would finally agree, but instead of doing that, the man threw his hands in the air, then placed them sharply on his _(practically nonexistent)_ hips, and remained silently staring.

 

“Well then” He said “Miss Carlyle if you could please be as kind as to get me a cab and call my manager, I need to talk to him about my resignation, I can’t even continue working here”

 

Then he turned around and took a step away, but before he got far, Mr Rotwell was in front of him.

 

“But, Mr Lockwood, surely you can’t be serious” He said in a supposedly calm voice, but I could tell, as well as Lucy knew, that he was getting nervous “This is just one big misunderstanding, tomorrow everything will be-”

 

“Yes, it is very clear that this is a misunderstanding, Mr Rotwell. You clearly do not understand the things I require to work my art. Someone who doesn’t get the needs of an artist like myself, I simply cannot work in this conditions!”

 

I felt something grip me by my shoulder and for a moment my blood ran cold, thinking it was security. I turned to see who’s hand it was, for it was a hand, but I was greeted by a brown mop of hair, shaking softly. Lucy, it was her hand and that was her hair, was now highly struggling to keep her voice quiet as she laughed. Tears had formed in her eyes and were trying to flow down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook and her other hand tightly clasped over her mouth.

 

“This is no working environment for a man such as me!”

 

“But, Mr Lockwood! You cannot go!” The director exclaimed “You’re our lead actor, our protagonist, our main character! You are the star of this movie!”

 

“You’ll have to get a new star for the movie, cause I’m out of here!” The man tried to walk around the director, but his path was blocked.

 

“Mr Lockwood, there must be something we can do! Something that can convince you to stay!”

 

“Rehire the chef” 

 

“But-”

 

“Cab!”

 

“Alright! Alright, Mr Lockwood! Miss Carlyle” Lucy straightened beside me and took a sharp breath in.

 

“Yes, sir?” She said trying to keep a neutral face.

 

“Do not allow Mr Cubbins to leave this studio. He is the man of this kitchen” 

 

“Alright sir” She gave me a brief smile, barely contained, but one that told me how hilarious she thought this all was. And I had to agree with her, to be perfectly honest: never, in all my years working on Lion Productions, had I ever witnessed an actor’s tantrum. Not a single time. I knew those were a thing because Lucy ranted about it like it was hot gossip, but I spent my time inside the walls of this kitchen and only once had I ventured farther because there had been a problem with the delivered food, but I never walked into the sets.

 

“Thank you, Mr Rotwell” The actor said with the brightest smile I had ever seen “You do understand the needs of an artist like myself, I knew you would. Now, if you need be, I shall be in my dressing room, I need to freshen up before we start rolling again. And, Miss Carlyle, if I could get some more strawberry jam buns with lemon crème, I would be most grateful”

 

After that, he walked out of the kitchen in long strides. The other woman, Miss Munro if I recall correctly, went away with Mr Rotwell as well, no doubt also making a few demands about whatever it was actors always complained about.

 

“Well, you heard him” Lucy said beside me “Get about pleasing your savior” The cooks finally stopped trembling behind us. 

 

“Robin, get me the ingredients for the strawberry buns!” I called and got my people to work, besides, the menu for the evening meal would be arriving soon, we needed to start chopping vegetables and heating the ovens “Who was that man?”

 

“Remember that person who keeps asking for the buns?” Lucy leaned against the wall beside my working station and folded her arms. She normally didn’t have time to spare with ‘petty conversations’, but I guess that after that show _(and running around the sets to get here before her boss did)_ she needed a break.

 

“The one that ‘sent their compliments’ a few days ago?” Robin came back a few moments later with every necessary ingredients and placed them on the counter, then ran back to his own station.

 

“That same guy. That was him” 

 

“Miss Carlyle” One of the cooks handed Lucy a cup of tea and brought forth a stool for her, like it was customary for whenever she did stayed here for a chat _(a.k.a., not that often)_. She took them gratefully.

 

“But who is that guy?” I added the ingredients to the flour, hands cleaned carefully, and kneaded them tenderly.

 

“Anthony J. Lockwood, hottest actor of the year, owner of the brightest smile in the world, and hot-dream date of every tween and teen in this world. Also, the protagonist and main star of the ‘Remember Me’ production Mr Rotwell is working on now” She sipped the tea carefully “Though, he isn’t usually like that” I raised an eyebrow at her, my hands now working on separating the dough into strips.

 

“He seemed to be right in his element” I said.

 

“His an actor, George, of course he was at his element. But he isn’t usually such a pain in the ass, he normally doesn’t do that kind of scenes”

 

“Then why did he did it now?”

 

“I think he was fairly obvious of what he wanted, George, or did you somehow miss everything he said?”

 

“Why would an actor ever risk his current job contract for a cook?” I asked her as I now beaten the strawberries I’ placed in the pans to make them jam. 

 

“He took a calculated risk, George, Rotwell wasn’t gonna let him walk away just because. His the most popular actor of the moment, his skills are top and any movie that comes out now with him in it will win millions, no sane producer would let him off their hooks if they have the chance. As to why he did this, I don’t know. I’m only the assistant”

 

My hands went over the steps of cooking the buns and making the jam and the crème, but my mind was stuck on those moments the actor, Mr Lockwood, was in this kitchen. He acted like such a brat, and he got away with what he wanted. Had I been Mr Rotwell, I knew I wouldn’t have given a shit about whatever an actor’s tantrum was about.

 

And she was right, he had done it so I could keep my job. But why? Why would a man of his position care about what happened to a cook? What could he possibly want that made him through such a scene, because strawberry jam buns is definitely not the reason. He must have other intentions. 

 

But, for now, I could only be grateful to him for getting me my job back.


	8. Agency Swap AU Locklyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Joint Case” -  
> Lucy x Lockwood
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: its not real until you meet it
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Agency Swap (originally Kwami Swap AU, but this is not Miraculous Ladybug)

“So we’re doing a joint work?”

 

“Inspector Barnes think this will help other agencies to ‘improve’ their performance” Quill said with a grimace of disdain.

 

“But why do we have to work with _them_?”

 

“I don’t know Kat, either Barnes wants to try our patience or he thinks we’re the last hope that agency has” He sighed, obviously wishing it wasn’t that way “Well, get a good sleep and be here by six tomorrow so we can leave on time. Dismissed”

 

We groaned silently but did as told. I stood from my seat and walked out of the meeting room.

 

Before going further, I should introduce myself. My name is Lucy Carlyle and I work as a psychical investigation agent in the Fittes Agency. I came down to London six months ago after a case went horribly wrong in with my team at my hometown, Cheviot Hills. I ran away in hopes of getting a better life, a new job, a fresh beginning.

 

I applied for many agencies, but only Fittes took me in after seeing a demonstration of my abilities. I was initially one of the lowest agents, but in only six months I had gotten more promotions than most agents, and now I was member of one of the most elite teams in the company; Quill Kipps’ team.

 

The team was made up of another four people: first Quill Kipps, obviously. His the leader of the team and supervisor, old enough for his Talent to start fading, but still capable enough so that he wouldn’t be completely useless in a case. Then, we have Kat Godwin. She’s a Listener, like myself, though her Talent is less sharp than mine _(the reason I got placed in this team)_. She’s usually quiet but a little ill-tempered, and we do tend to bump against each other, but nothing I can’t handle of the everyday basis.

 

After Kat, there’s Ned. His Talent is Touch, but I was pretty sure his Talent is not the reason he was part of this team, but because he was the brutal strength. He was physically stronger than all of us, alone and together, though I had challenge him to a little wrestling before and come close to winning. Then there’s Bobby Vernon. His Sight wasn’t that great as Quill’s, but what really made Bobby special, what got him in this team, are his researching abilities. There wasn’t a thing he couldn’t find inside the Archives, even if he had to un-dust all the books inside the place.

 

And finally there was me, the newest addition. We had been working on cases together now for two months. 

 

Of all agencies that could have taken me in, I was grateful it was Fittes, since it was the best agency in London. However, being in the best agency had its downsides, for example, Inspector Barnes insisted that we made joint cases with other, smaller agencies, like Grimble, Tamworth, Hambleton, even Bunchurch and that two-agent agency, Lockwood and Co.

 

For example, tonight we had a case with those of Lockwood and Co. and my team was just dying to get this over with. Personally I had never had to work with them before, though Quill had pointed them out to me a few times when he saw them on the streets, but I had never even been on the same side of the street that they are.

 

Still, I had heard lots of things about them, like that they had burned down a client’s house. How do you even end up burning down a house in the middle of a haunting?! I guess I could only tell when I met them.

 

**——**

 

“If they don’t get here, we should at least start on our own!”

 

“I wish we could, Kat, but we have to wait for them. If they arrive anymore late we can put that down on a report, surely that can give Barnes a clue as to what should be done with them and their little agency”

 

Mr Addington had called Fittes because his son had been hearing strange noises at night, and wanted whatever spirit there was to be taken out immediately. If it was just us working here we would have this ghost packing now and we would be able to get on our way. But it wasn’t just us, we had to wait for Lockwood and Co., who was currently running 20 minutes late.

 

“Are they usually this late?” I asked.

 

“No, this seems to be a new addition to the list of things that make them incompetent” Quill said. He had been very irritable as of the last hours, frowning a more than normal and even rolling his eyes at Bobby once when he wasn’t looking, which was not something Quill would ever do. I had asked him before what made him dislike Lockwood and Co. so much, but the only thing he told me was that it was a matter of pride.

 

A few minutes later a cab stopped a few steps away and two boys walked out of it, carrying big duffel bags, but wearing normal clothes.

 

“Kipps! Working together again-”

 

“You’re late, Tony” Quill said curtly. The boy glared at my team-leader for a second before smiling with teeth so bright I thought I could be blinded by them.

 

“Well, you didn't see the traffic there was, Kipps, if you had then you’d understand” 

 

“Mmh, yes I suppose I would” Quill sneered “Well, introductions must be made, I guess, you already know my team, Tony, still, this is the newest member of my team, Lucy Carlyle” 

 

I took a moment to appreciate the two boys before me. One was tall, really tall, with dark and slightly curly hair and dark eyes. He had a wide smile with bone-white teeth. He had a white shirt, black trousers, and a long blue coat I remembered Quill pointing out as his ‘king’s coat’. The other boy was shorter, just a little taller than me, with a mop of curly hair on his hair. There was a pair of big glasses sitting nose. He wore an ugly blue jumper and a pair of baggy trousers. 

 

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Carlyle. I’m Anthony Lockwood, head of Lockwood and Co., and this is my colleague, George Cubbins” He extended a giant hand, which I shook briefly.

 

“Alright then, lets get working” We entered Mr Addington’s house and laid our bags on the kitchen. Kat made some tea and Bobby explained the details of the haunting, seemingly much to Mr Cubbins’ annoyance. He was a researcher too, apparently, and assured he had all the needed information with him and that there was no need for Bobby to explain it. However, Quill didn’t listen and said it was better safe than sorry, and something about a case in which, it seems, Lockwood and Co. mistook a source for a simple rock.

 

“Thanks for the briefing, Bobby, I’m sure it was most needed” Quill said with a glare to the Lockwood and Co. agents “Very well then, lets start. We should separate into pairs, though there will be a group of three. I’ll stay here with Bobby, Kat, you’ll go with Cubbins to the attic, and Ned, take Lucy and Tony to the second floor. We shall all meet here at 12:00 o’clock to discuss improvements”

 

So, we all took our bags and went for our places. Kat and George Cubbins walked up the stairs first, with Ned, Mr Lockwood and me a few minutes after them. We made an iron circle in one of the rooms for us to retreat to if needed, then went about taking readings of the floor.

 

“20ºC, no death glows or apparitions and still no sounds” I said as Ned took notes beside me. Ned said we should take them all together, but Mr Lockwood insisted he could take the readings on his own, though I think he said it out of pride because of the way Ned said it. 

They were acting like Night Watch kids, honestly, I get that Quill may have some issues with Lockwood and Co. for whatever reason he doesn’t feel like sharing, but Kat, Ned and Bobby shouldn’t let his behavior towards them influence the way they behave.

 

“There’s no death glows over here too” I heard Mr Lockwood’s voice call from the other side of the hall.

 

“Can he even see ghosts?” Ned muttered under his breath.

 

“Ned!” I slapped his arm, hushing him before the other guy could hear him. To question another agent’s abilities was a serious insult among those of the profession, and one that could cause the biggest of fights to break loose. It was a team-breaker “Behave yourself!”

 

“We should get back to the circle and wait for the apparition to get here, take readings every twenty minutes should be constant enough, and keep our eyes and ears open” Mr Lockwood said as we walked over and I felt Ned bristle beside me.

 

“I don’t remember Quill putting you in charge, Lockwood” Ned took a step forward, his arms and shoulders squared. He lifted his jaw and looked at the other male in what I thought was a challenging way, for Mr Lockwood also squared his slim shoulders and lifted his chin, both guys looking at each other from behind their nose.

 

“Ned, stop it” I muttered, pulling his arm “Don’t start a fight now, its not the time”

 

He still didn’t look at me, the same challenging, slightly menacing look on his eyes unfaltering. 

 

“Ned” My voice grew low and dark, finally getting him to stop glaring at the long-coated guy in front of him. 

 

“Alright” He grumbled, walking back to the circle. So did I after him, and so did Mr Lockwood behind us.

 

We waited in the silence, our Talents on the ready for the slightest change in the atmosphere. There were changes, but slow ones: some ghost fog here and there, little miasma and malaise, and some far off sounds.

 

“I can hear something” I told Ned “Like pacing, but very far, the ghost shouldn’t appear any moment soon”

 

“And you can still hear it, Miss Carlyle?” Mr Lockwood asked me with an elegant raised eyebrow.

 

“Yes, Listening is my speciality” I said.

 

“Wow, I can’t hear ghosts even if they’re in the same room, your Talent must be very strong” He said with the brightest smile anyone had ever given me. 

 

“Oh, uh, thanks…” I replied, my voice small in my throat.

 

“So, Kipps told me you’ve heard things about me, Miss Carlyle. Only good things, I hope”

 

“No, not really”

 

“Well, I hope to change your opinion in me”

 

“We’ll see…” It was true I had heard so much of him my ears almost fell off, but I hadn't really believed what I heard, deciding to come here with an open mind, and so far I hadn’t seen anything of what Quill, Kat or even inspector Barnes had to say about him and his colleague.

 

We stood in silence after that, allowing the darkness and the sounds of the night to take over the room. I could feel Ned was standing on end, his muscles tense and ready to leap to the action, hand close to his rapier. On the other hand, Mr Lockwood was the very definition of relaxed; he stood tall and purposefully, his head slightly raised in a manner that suggest absolute control of the situation. His arms rested stoically at his sides, close to where his rapier and salt bombs were, but just about close and far enough.

 

I was another story, also standing on end, my legs bent stiffly, my head slightly hunched and shoulders raised in a vulture-like manner. My brow creased in concentration, my inner ear straining in hopes of catching the pacing get closer.

 

“Still nothing” Ned grumbled moodily “Any progress with those sounds?”

 

“No” I sighed “They still sound far away”

 

“I can’t find any death glows still” Mr Lockwood muttered absentmindedly “Maybe the source is in some other room”

 

“If the source was in some other room of this same floor” Ned turned sharply “We would still be able to see it”

 

“I meant of another floor, there are rooms everywhere in this house”

 

“Sure you did, Foolwood” Ned huffed.

 

“Ned-”

 

“Excuse me?” Mr Lockwood turned to see him, his demeanor changed from relaxed to uneasily calm with an underlying threatening voice.

 

“You heard me, Foolwood” Ned growled, not turning to look at him.

 

“Ned don-”

 

“Do not refer to me in such a manner” Mr Lockwood said with harsh serenity “Specially before lady, besides this is not the proper place for discussing, we could make the ghost stronger” 

 

“Do not lecture me about what to do and not to do on a haunting” Ned growled, finally looking at Mr Lockwood. They looked at each other like a pair of dogs that wanted to bite the other’s head off, one wrathful and the other serenely glaring, and I could almost swear they were growling. There were both very similar in height, but Ned was obviously stronger.

 

“Ned, stop it!” I stepped between them, placing my hands on my teammate’s chest and pushing him back “Like he said, its not the moment. When we finish, you can ask Quill to let you fight him, but right now, we’ve got to get back to the team, its already 12” 

 

After a few moments of tense silence, Ned finally looked at me and changed his offensive stance, and so did Mr Lockwood after him. We checked again for signs of the ghost, but this time, there was none. The ghost fog was gone, the miasma and malaise too was gone, leaving an empty and relieving feeling inside us. The pacing sounds were also gone.

 

So, we walked downstairs silently where Quill, Kat, Bobby and Mr Cubbins waited with cups of tea and a silver box on the table, containing an old copper key. They explained the ghost had been in the attic where Kat and Mr Cubbins found it lurking around some old boxes. They had to open them and search about the objects inside until they found the key and placed it in the silver box.

 

“Kipps, you have a brilliant agent, Miss Carlyle here could hear the ghost pacing around, even though the room we were in was on the other end of the floor!” Mr Lockwood exclaimed.

 

“I’m aware of Lucy’s marvelous performances during work, she is a brilliant agent” Quill said with a proud smile “Ned, fetch the chains and the bags, so we can leave. Tony here will be taking the source to the furnaces”

 

“Miss Carlyle?” I was about to follow Ned upstairs so we could pick up our stuff when the sound of my name and a light tap on my shoulder made me stop. It was Mr Lockwood “I’m sorry for almost causing a scene back there with Ned, it wouldn’t have been appropriate”

 

“That’s alright” I said “He can be very bullheaded at times”

 

“I wish I had gotten to see your Talent in action. I’m sure you’d be wondrous and a sight to pay for”

 

Thank the Visitors for the night’s darkness or he would have been able to see the terrible blush that rose up my body. 

 

“Oh, its not anything special…”

 

“I’m sure it is” He took a step closer and I took a step back “I hope to get the chance to see you soon, hopefully on another case” He gave me a smile that shone in what little moonlight seeped in through the curtains, but still not bright enough to show him the blush that most definitely erupted on my cheeks.

 

“Mr Lockwood-”

 

“Please, just call me Lockwood, no formalities, that’s only for acquaintances” 

 

 

 

I waited for the cab that was taking Lockwood and Mr Cubbins to the furnaces to disappear around the block before turning to my team leader.

 

“Quill, we’ll we be having anymore joint cases soon?”


	9. Secret Agent AU Fittwell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The Silver Unicorn and the Prancing Lion” -  
> Marissa x Tom
> 
>  
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
>  
> 
> Summary: don’t accept missions stupidly.
> 
>  
> 
> AU: Secret Agent

**————Marissa————**

 

“His been sitting there all day, and the other guy hasn’t arrived yet. Do you know how many lattes I’ve had to order now?” I had been sitting on the same cafe, with the same useless documents opened in my computer, looking out at the same man I had been looking at for the past five hours. An empty cup of coffee rested beside me, like had done several other more in the course of my mission. Luckily everything is paid by Internal Control.

 

_“He’ll arrive soon, Issa, trust me”_ The voice on the intercom said. I snorted.

 

“I swear to every deity in the heavens, our man is not coming to this ‘meeting’; Rachel is bluffing about this, Tommy, you know she is” 

 

_“But Internal Control doesn’t think she is, so we have to wait until our man appears or the day ends and we hear more news about this ‘meetings’”_

 

“He won’t come, I know he won’t” Talking to myself knowing that the person in the intercom could hear me was definitely one of the harder parts of being an agent “And when he doesn’t I’m so going to rub it in Rachel’s face”

 

_“I know you will, Issa”_

 

Lots of people say that being a secret agent is nothing like what people see in movies, but allow me to say that’s a lie. Being and working as a secret agent is just like what we see in the movies, but its you and its for real. The cool fight scenes are real, the interrogations are real, the undercover missions are real, everything is _(depending on which government you work for, of course)_.

 

“My arse hurts from being here so long, Tommy” I typed on my computer and shifted uncomfortably, trying to get into a position in which my bum wouldn’t feel so numb.

 

_“I thought you were sitting on the couch-y chairs?”_

 

“All comfortable chairs stop being comfortable after half an hour, Tom, I’ve been here for five”

 

“It’ll be over soon, Issa, you’ll see”

 

“I hope, I swear if nothing happens in the next half hour I’m going out for a walk” I grumbled grievously. Still, I knew I couldn’t do that, Internal Control would kill me if they knew I left my position. So, I ordered another latte _(with a little pastry to accompany it, because why not, Internal Control was still paying for all of this, and I felt like making today’s bill a real bitch on them)_ and made a show of typing in my computer, changing from documents and starting new ones, then researching.

 

“Would it be too wrong of me to look for cute ponies on Goggle?”

 

_“Issa, you know it would”_

 

“Ugh, I’m just so bored here! I need some action, Tom, I can’t just sit here all day!”

 

_“You should have thought about that before offering yourself for this mission”_

 

“I wouldn’t have offered myself if Rachel hadn’t suggested something so ridiculous and needed to be proved wrong”

 

_“I can’t help you there, Marissa, you got yourself in this”_

 

“Damn me and my need to prove stupid bitches wrong” I grumbled proudly. It was true, I had gotten myself in this situation just because I felt the need to prove wrong every person I met, sometimes even Tom, my best friend and closest coworker. His my contact with Internal Control, without him I wouldn’t know anything about my job. There usually weren’t any stupid missions on my line of job, but there was many fake information that reached the informants, and if Internal Control’s people deemed it real, then they would send someone in a mission. 

 

Personally I thought Rachel’s information was all rubbish, but Internal Control didn’t thought so _(as incredible as it is)_ and decided it was worth a shot.

 

“Aaaaaaaand still nothing. The guy is still there, sitting, reading the newspaper for the tenth time already. Honestly, Tommy, this is a waste of time! I could be doing something so much more interesting!”

 

_“I know you could, Issa”_ He sighed on the other line of the intercom _“You could be kicking mafia men’s asses, you could be exploding buildings, you could be having crazy car chases on the avenues, and you’re stuck here, in a cafe, looking for some old dude in a suit”_

 

“Exactly, Tom! I could be doing so many awesome things, but no, I’m stuck here” I sighed dramatically “You’re the only one who gets me, Tommy. Nobody else does”

 

_“I make my best to understand you, Issa”_ He said cheerily and then muttered _“Even if it can be hard sometimes”_

 

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean!”

 

_“You know what I mean, Marissa”_

 

“No, I don’t”

 

_“You do”_

 

“…well, I supposed I do” I agreed “I am a woman; women are difficult”

 

_“No, not really, just you”_ He laughed on the other side. I could actually picture him in his office, laughing to himself while looking at me through the cafe’s cameras _(which is how he knew I was still sitting in the same place, looking for the same guy)_ and making sure I didn’t get distracted _“Most women are plain and boring. Not you Marissa”_

 

“I’m different from the others. Life would be so boring if I weren’t-”

 

_“He’s here”_

 

“What?!” I turned back to the man I had been stalking all day, still sitting in the same bench, with the newspaper still open on the same page as half an hour ago, but with someone else sitting beside him, muttering to each other and pretending to be looking at his phone. The man I’d been waiting for “Shit, now I owe Rachel 50 pounds”

 

So, I opened the chat on my computer and typed a single phrase:

 

**-IC, this is Silver Unicorn and Prancing Lion. The hen is in the box-**

 

_“And you owe me dinner”_

 

**-Silver Unicorn and Prancing Lion, this is IC. Proceed-**

 

“Its on, Lion”


	10. Mermaid AU Lockbinslyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sing With the Tide” -  
> Lockwood x George x Lucy
> 
> Lockwood and Co. Series
> 
> Summary: Sea monsters are real.
> 
> AU: Mermaid

**————Lockwood————**

 

Sea storms are a common occurrence on this side of the ocean. The weather shifts, the airs change, the waters stir and the fishermen hurry into the waters in search of any fish that got caught up in the storm. 

 

On the other hand, thunderstorms are not that common in the sea. 

 

Whenever a thunderstorm broke the one thing that was sane to do was turn your back right at it and walk away as far as you could! If you get caught in a thunder sea storm, the most probable thing is that you ain’t coming out alive! Only one lightning falling on your boat is enough to make it burn to the depths of the sea.

 

It was at days and nights like this one I was grateful I didn’t worked as a sailor or fisherman. The skies turning pitch-black, full of raging, fat clouds. The sound of thunder booming, able to be heard from miles and miles away. The lightning breaking the sky, making it look blinding white for barely a few seconds. There’s a reason why sailors used to say the sea is a woman, however, I had never been in contact with a woman long enough to prove this. 

 

But last night was the worst thunderstorm I had ever seen. Even George said he had never seen one of such magnitude. The clouds had reached our house and showered our yard, over our clinic and flooded the outside of our house. It was this kind of nights that gave us work.

 

A storm always meant injured sea animals, no matter how small the storm was. So, that’s how George and I found ourselves walking along the beach, with our sand-boots tightly strapped, and our backpacks with basic Animal Medical Care equipment. We’re animal rescuers.

 

The beach was full of dragged algae and and starfish, some of which were still alive and we pushed them back to the water, the others we took them with us. Starfishes were well liked by tourists. There were also some stagnant fish on the sand, which we took the care of putting back to the water, waiting for them to react and swim on their own.

 

“It seems like nothing mayor got hurt, and with last night’s storm” George huffed.

 

“We haven’t finished checking our side, we can still find bigger fish” I said cheerily. 

 

“Hmm, lets hope” Still, we kept walking. It was our duty as a marine clinic. Both George and myself had always been deeply intrigued by the ancient stories of the sea my father’s books told about. 

 

My parents had been marine biologists who travelled the world in search of proof that those ancient stories they read about were real. Creatures like the Megalodon, the Kraken, the Leviathan, the Yacu-mama, Charybdis, those kind of creatures; sea monsters from all kinds of mythology that they thought couldn’t have been a mere tale of the people. They never found much other than lots of bones and what they thought could be eggs, and they were going to show it all to the world in a conference they had been preparing for years, but they died before they could prove anything, and they left all their research with me, plus all their amazing book stories that George and I loved to read.

 

“There seems to be a lot more algae this time” George mussed quietly.

 

“Yes, and a lot more jellyfish too” I said “Think they could have spiked their reproduction?”

 

“Probably”

 

We found a some more bigger fish soon, but none of them in critical conditions. There was one time, about a year ago, that George and I found a family of seals, which had been hurt by fishermen. We had taken then to our clinic and kept them there for a few weeks until they were healed and strong enough to go back to the sea. We had many times seen dolphins too, many of which had also been hurt, by other creatures, storms and fishermen as well. 

 

Fishermen were the number one enemy of our profession. We had nothing against them looking for fish and bringing it over, after all, its part of the human diet, but to hunt for innocent, beautiful creatures like dolphins, seals and most of all whales is criminal. George and I had many times found ourselves in conflict with fisher boats, and had put many of them out of business due to their lack of correct papers, permission and credential.

 

Putting fishermen out of business was my second favorite thing to do, after helping sea animals.

 

“Lockwood” I turned back to George from where I looked at the deep waters of the sea, and saw him squinting his eyes behind his glasses “Look” He pointed before us with a chubby hand. I followed it with my gaze until my eyes found the rocky ledge that indicated the last of our beach territory. The waves hit against it more forceful than they did on the sand, the white sea foam abundant with bubbles.

 

I was about to ask him why we were looking at it when I noticed they were surrounded by a net. A rope, knotted, wide net, which moved softly with the water. And, protruding from the rocks, a long, thin metal arm. A harpoon. 

 

We both knew for a fact that there was no sand between those rocks, only more rocks creating a bed of small stalagmites, so the possibilities of finding a still-impaled harpoon among those rocks was near impossible, which could only mean one thing.

 

“It could still be alive, George, lets go!” We ran the remaining meters careful as to not get our feet stuck on the sand. Then, even more careful, we climbed on the rock ledge, placing our bags on the flattest rocks. 

 

The harpoon was indeed impaled into something. That something was long, very long in fact. So long only half of it seemed to really be resting on the ledge, the other half was still hidden in the water. The harpoon was impaled to a big, colorful tail, with beautiful shiny scales and swishy fins on the sides. 

 

“Lockwood…” George muttered, his voice seemingly stuck on his throat. I knew what he was thinking, honestly so was I, but it couldn’t be true. Those were only stories. Only sea townsfolk stories, centuries old.

 

“The rest of it is still on the water” I said decisively “Lets take it out” 

 

I jumped to the other side of the ledge, careful not to trip or step on the dormant creature. We knelt on the rocks and slid as far to the edge as we dared to go and dipped our hands on the ice-cold water. They immediately stumbled upon the being’s soft and slippery body, so we let our hands slide, slowly, feeling the freezing body. 

 

Of course, we could only dip our arms so far, so we had to pull it out. I let my hand grab a hold of one of the creature’s extremities, made sure George was grabbing one as well, and pulled. We pulled carefully so the harpoon on the tail wouldn’t move, slowly maneuvering the body so it would come out complete.

 

“Sweet-water dolphins…” George exclaimed breathlessly. We stood there, feet firmly perched on the rocks, beholding the creature we had just pulled out of the frigid water. The tail alone was about two meters long, and the upper body was probably just one meter long. The upper body started where the scales merged into silky skin, pale from lack of sunshine. It kept going up, forming a small stomach, then a rib cage from where two small breasts rested, slowly moving up and down in deep, heavy breaths. Then a pair of shoulders, giving way to two slender arms, with scale-covered hands, and long claws at the end of each finger. Finally, on the shoulders rested the head, the face mature and with strong features, eyes closed in a peaceful manner.

 

The body of a fish girl.

 

“Sweet-water dolphins indeed” I agreed.

 

**——**

 

While I love reading my late parent’s books about evil, human-hungry water creatures, their research about their existence had always sounded like nonsense to me, even though George always said there was true to each legend. For me all those stories have always been nothing more than stories.

 

But I think today I might change the way I think about them.

 

I have no idea how George and I managed to carry the creature from one side of the beach to the other and inside our clinic in just one hour, but I’m not about to do the maths of that. What mattered is that we got it in, careful so the harpoon wouldn’t move inside it and hurt it more than it already has.

 

When we got to the clinic, we took the harpoon off and bandaged the creature’s tail, as we knew we wouldn’t be able to stitch it with all the scales in the way. The being remained deeply unconscious the whole time, but I was kind of grateful for it, since we didn’t knew what it would do to us once it woke.

 

“Lockwood, its a siren!” George cried out once we placed the creature in our biggest water tank “Do you have any idea what this means? If there’s one there could be more of them, hundreds of them, whole colonies; there could be even more creatures! Hydras, Scylla, hippocampi-”

 

“George, finding one siren doesn’t mean my parent’s whole sea-monster compendium is real. We don’t know if it can talk, it hasn’t even woken up yet”

 

“She, Lockwood, sirens are she’s” The blond corrected smugly.

 

“You know what I meant. Let’s just…wait until it- _she_ wakes up and see where we go from there, ok?” 

 

We didn’t have to wait long, however. The sound of banging made us look up from what we were doing and rush to the clinic.

 

Inside the tank, the now fully-awake she-creature swirled upon herself, frantically looking for a way out. Her distraught face looked everywhere as she moved, the clawed hands touching the glass, nails scratching against it. 

 

_“FREE ME!”_ The words boomed inside my skull, making my ears ring. The sound clashed in brain leaving it feeling cumbersome and sluggish, the echo of a voice still thundering in my mind.

 

“George…”

 

“Lockwood, you heard that?!” The blond turned to me, his hands clasped tightly on his ears, just like I had mine, but he somehow looked totally unbothered about the angered monster inside our facility “Did you also heard that? The voice in your head!”

 

“Yes, George, I heard it!” 

 

“There was a voice in our heads! Lockwood, it must have been the siren! How else-”

 

_“SIREN?!”_ The voice exploded in my mind once again, louder than last night’s thunder, making the world spin before my eyes _“I AM A MERMAID, YOU SAND-BRAIN!”_ My senses came back to me fast enough to see the creature spin faster on itself, then send its tail flying against the glass. However, just before it clashed, a flash of white inside the tank reminded me-

 

“Wait! You’re inju-”

 

The bandaged tail banged against the glass and the creature screeched. Have you heard the sound of a lawnmower, or a blender when they’re on? Now, make it ten more of those, each in different pitch, and you’ll have a perfect representation of what the mermaid’s agony sounded like. 

 

This time the sound not only blasted inside our heads, it hammered down on us like cymbals and made our vision go blank. My brain seemed to stop working for a moment before the world came back to me and I saw the creature, writhing furiously in the water and still howling in pain, though not as strongly as before.

 

**——**

 

To say that my parents’ research and books were incomplete about their information on mermaids is an understatement. There is literally nothing else other than the fact that they are half human, half fish creatures. 

 

It said nothing about the unusual strength she used to almost break the tank’s glass, or the horrible screeching sound she made when she hurt herself, or the voice we heard inside our heads that was most definitely hers. Not a single clue in any book George or I had ever read.

 

The mermaid didn’t calmed down for another couple of minutes while it kept shrieking in the tank. Currently, it laid motionless at the bottom of the tank, curled inside its own tail, vigilant and alert of anything we did.

 

“I don’t like the way she’s looking at us, George” I said to my friend, who was currently rifling through the brief pages of research on merfolk our books had to offer “I feel like we’re prey”

 

“She can’t do us much, Lockwood” He replied absent-mindedly “Unless she jumps out of the tank, but I don’t think she’d do that. That would be a stupid thing to do”

 

“But she could jump out?” 

 

“She’d have to be really stupid to do so; no rational siren would-” The she sprang forward. She pounced on the glass, head-butting it so hard, and making such a sound, I thought either the glass broke or her skull did, but they were both intact still.

 

_“I’m not a siren!”_ The voice erupted inside our heads once more, this time less violent but still, but an aggressive undertone. This time, however, it didn’t made me as dizzy as before _“I told you, am a mermaid!”_

 

I looked over at George, who also looked at the tank worriedly, wether it was for the glass or for the head-banged creature, I didn’t know.

 

“Ok, miss…” I said as civilly as possible “We’re sorry…we…we won’t call you a siren anymore”

 

She huffed.

 

_“You better”_ The voice inside our heads sounded again. 

 

“Um,… are you…hungry? What do mermaids eat?” I can’t recall a time in my life in which I’ve been more awkward than this. Even to my own ears, it sounded like the kind of question I shouldn’t have to make, but it was true I didn’t knew what mermaids eat. Nobody does “Would you like me to…fetch you something to eat?”

 

Her angered features softened barely noticeably.

 

_“Fish”_ The word echoed in my brain. 

 

So, I walked out of the room and made my way through the house and to the kitchen. We always made sure to have the fridge well stocked for when an emergency could pop up _(which isn’t exactly uncommon when living a few meters away from the beach)._ George and I don’t do fishing, but we did went to the marked frequently and fish was, of course, very popular on the area.

 

I took some out, making sure to have a wide variety and walked back to the clinic. The room in which we placed the mermaid was the biggest we had, with many windows that showed the beach on one side and the sea on the other. This windows also meant you could see inside the room from other parts of the house.

 

I was still pretty far from the tank’s room, but the large windows allowed me free view of what happened inside, which is how I noticed: the mermaid’s form slowly retreating into the water and George leaning over the glass.

 

The blood ran ice-cold inside me, I clutched the fish in my hands and took off, running as fast as I could and praying to the sea goddesses that I wasn’t too late.

 

“George!” I called. The windows showed me the same image still; he was getting closer to the side, his chubby frame pressing against the glass and his arms hanging close to the mermaid's head.

 

"George!" I braved another look through the windows: the mermaid's clawed hands were holding to the glass, while my colleague was profoundly looking at her face, his face scrunched in concentration "George!"

 

I should have known this would happen! I should have known! I was very well familiar with the almost non-existent boundaries of George's hunger for knowledge- the needle-thin line he identified as "going too far" and how often he freely chose to cross that line. I knew all this and yet I let him alone with a never-proven-real creature who's legends say its murderous. 

 

"George, get away from the tank!" 

 

"...only talk through telekinesis?"

 

_"Its called sea-kinesis"_

 

"George!" I burst into the room, ready to lunge myself against the creature's hungry claws and save my friend from a horrible death. But there was no threat: George was merrily talking with the creature, asking all kinds of questions while he examined the mermaid's teeth, seemingly unfazed by the little wooden stick George was sticking down it's throat.

 

"So you don't use your vocal chords to talk- Lockwood! Did you break the fish?" George turned to see me with the same spark in his eyes that a three-year-old would have when seeing his favorite candy.

 

"Eh...yes, its here" I slowly walked forward, hesitantly reaching the fish to the creature. She snaked a hand towards me, and for a moment I feared she was going to grab my wrist and pull me to the tank to try and drown me like the legends say. However, she did nothing of the sort and just grabbed the slimy animals from my hands, dumbing them in the water with her and immediately choosing one from which to eat.

 

Her razor-sharp teeth sank on the scaly food and pulled the head off in a single, fast and easy movement.

 

"Lockwood, you won't believe it! There are so many things we still don't know! That voice we heard, inside our heads, it is her, Lockwood, it is! As it turns out, mermaids can't talk like-"

 

"Wait, George, how do you-"

 

"She just told me" George practically shook with excitement, like if he had taken ten cups of coffee on his own this morning. But, I mean, finding a live mermaid, taking her to our facility and talking to her? This must be like Christmas to him.

 

"So you talked to her? I thought she was trying to drown you!"

 

_"I told you before"_ The voice appeared inside my head once again, this time serene but still with an angry undertone. I looked back to the tank to see the creature frowning at us, still chewing on the fish _"I am a mermaid, not a siren. Only sirens try to drown men with their singing"_

 

"So you won't try to hurt us?" I asked from my place. I wasn't about to get much closer to the tank if the being in it could become dangerous.

 

_"Where am I?”_ I realized the mermaid must have been lost consciousness long before falling on the rock ledge we found her in, and waking up somewhere outside the ocean but still somehow surrounded by water must have been very confusing to her.

 

"Oh, I am sorry, we haven't properly introduced ourselves. My name is Anthony Lockwood, this is my colleague, George Cubbins, and this is our marine clinic, Lockwood and Co."

 

_"Lucy"_

 

**——**

 

George and I were fortunate and grateful we didn't have more animals to tend to in the clinic, if we did we wouldn't have been able to spend the next day with Lucy.

 

We convinced her of wearing one of George's old shirts for obvious reasons _(though she seemed to be unable to understand why we were asking her to over herself, but we didn't dwell on that)_. Her underlying hostility vanished after we explained we had found her unconscious with the harpoon on her tail and only wished to help her, after that she was very civil, even friendly, when talking with us. It took me a few times to get used to the feeling of her talking, seeing as mermaid's vocal chords do not work for talking.

 

George asked her all kinds of questions and she answered most of them; she explained the difference between a mermaid and a siren is that siren's are evil sea-demons that only vaguely resemble humans _(they're still scaly)_ on their upper bodies while mermaids look exactly like humans from the waist up. As well sirens' voices have hypnotic effects on the people who listen to them sing, while mermaid's voices sound just as beautiful but don't have the same effect on humans _(She also added the fact that sirens eat human meat while mermaid's stick to fish and algae, so we had nothing to worry about)_.

 

"So if mermaids and sirens are real, that must mean other sea monsters are real too!" George exclaimed.

 

_"Depends on what monster you talk about"_ Lucy said _"There are many who have gone extinct"_

 

Flipping open our copy of Sea Legends and Myths, and showing Lucy the images in the pages, George began the interrogation.

 

"The kraken?"

 

_"Never seen it, but my reef's shamans have"_

 

"The Megalodon?"

 

_“Well I've seen some big sharks before, but nothing THAT big"_

 

"The Jörmungandr?"

 

_"He was killed by the Leviathan"_

 

"So the Leviathan exists?!"

 

_"It is said he sleeps peacefully under the sand of the deepest pit in the oceans, but he hasn't been seen in centuries, so he could be death"_

 

"Charybdis?"

 

_"What do you think happens to all those boats in what you humans call the Bermuda Triangle? Magic? As if!"_

 

"You heard that Lockwoood, Charybdis is still alive!"

 

_"Good ol' aunty Chary, visiting her is very fun, she always comes up with the best games"_

 

We filled a complete notebook with everything Lucy told us about herself and the other merfolk, about the other sea-monster-species she knew, like hippocampi, taniwhas and cecaelias, and of those she had only learned from the shamans. She told us stories about wars between this species and battles of this monsters that no human had ever listened to, like how Charybdis ate Scylla and her island, how the Kraken strangled the only monster that ever resembled a whale like Moby Dick.

 

And of course, she asked us questions too; about human culture and tradition, about our types of jobs, however, one way or another, she seemed to go back to the same topic: fishermen.

 

_"So, human don't eat dolphins or whales?"_ We sighed.

 

"No, we do not eat those, but there are people who likes to hunt them because they are valuable" Then she shrank back into the water.

 

_"And you...you don't eat or hunt mermaids, do you?"_ She asked, her voice sheepish and small inside our heads. George snorted and rolled his eyes.

 

"If we did, we wouldn't have helped you Lucy. If humans thought mermaids were real they would have hunted them long ago" He said.

 

"Don't worry, we aren't telling anyone about you" I reassured her, my hand reaching into the water to take her scaly claw and giving her my best smile. Even through the distortion of the water, and her hair floating around her head, I was able to see a blush rushing to her cheeks.

 

Her hands flew to her face and she jumped backwards, actually flying out of the tank before falling back in the water. This, however, made her tail follow suit, bringing with it about half the water in the tank splashing out of it and on top of George and me.

 

"Gah!" We were showered with the freezing _(and slightly slimy)_ water, sticking our clothes to our bodies and our hair to our foreheads.

 

_“Oh, sorry! That doesn't really happen when one's inside the water"_

 

"Don't worry about it" I said

 

"Its only water, besides, the notes are still dry" George added while looking for something with what to dry his glasses.

 

And talking about George's glasses, it seems to me that merfolk either don't do anything about those who have sight problems, or no one down there has sight problems at all, since Lucy said she had never seen anything quite like George's glasses.

 

"Here, try them" He told her, holding them out for her but standing near enough so that he could see her "Careful"

 

Lucy's long, claw-like fingers took the spectacles and slid them around her face, slowly adjusting them correctly behind her ears. When she was sure they wouldn't fall off her face she looked around with a frown.

 

_"I can't see whale shit with this!"_ She exclaimed _"How do they even work?”_ The next hour was spent with George explaining her how magnifying glasses work.

 

**——**

 

The one part about my job as a marine biologist vet that always makes me happier is the release of a fully healed, healthy and ready-to-take-on-the-world creature. But this time, it didn’t excite me, or George. It only gave us a bittersweet feeling.

 

Lucy’s tail healed fast and properly under our care, like was expected. The harpoon hadn’t done her lethal harm, the bones were spared from injury and the muscle tissue was strong, so it was no surprise she healed that fast. 

 

So, it was with a heavy heart that George and I took Lucy out of the tank and carried her to the beach. It was a chilly morning, the waves were rhythmic on the horizon, the sea calm around us. We took her to the nearest dock to the clinic where she could easily jump into the water and leave.

 

We sat together in the wood, silently looking at the farthest end of the sea, none of us knowing what to do or say. We had never done this before with an intelligent creature, so we didn’t knew what there was to say. Usually things weren’t this awkward on farewells.

 

“So…” I said, trying to lift the mood “You’ll be going back to your reef, Lucy?”

 

_“…for now, yes”_ She said _“I’ve been gone more than I usually am, my sister will be wondering where I am”_

 

“And after that?” George asked.

 

_“I don’t know”_ Silence fell on us once again, like a heavy and thick blanket in winter. I was desperate for something to say, a way to say what I felt, but I couldn’t think of something that could express it clearly.

 

“Lucy…how did you end up in the beach?” The words left my mouth before I even thought about them. We hadn’t asked her in all the days she spent in the clinic, we had been busy with collecting the information about her species, and she hadn’t seem eager to tell us. But suddenly, I felt the need, the urge to know, what happened to her that night that she would end up the way she did?

 

_“…the storm caught me by surprise”_ Her voice echoed in our minds, a melancholic hint barely apparent _“I was going home, but the waters got violent so I was going to hide in a cavern, I just had to find one first. When I was looking for a place to hide, a shoal surrounded me, then a net fell over us. I tried to get out, but the net closed. Then something stabbed my tail. We were pulled out of the water, but something made whoever was grabbing the net to let go of it, because we fell back in the ocean. I tried to swim away, but I must have gotten caught in a tide, I only remember being pulled away, still in the net and with something in my tail”_

 

“Fishermen” Both me and George said with a bitter tone at the same time. I guess we should have imagined it, how else would a mermaid end with a harpoon through her tail?

 

_“I’ll come back”_ She finally said, her voice firm in my head _“I’ll go visit aunty Chary, she should know a few more things about the oldest monsters, and then I’ll come back to tell you guys”_

 

She jumped from the wood, splashing all over as she entered the water.

 

“Lucy wait!” George called. We stood on the dock. Her head emerged from the water, surrounded by the brown mass of her short hair “How will we know you you’re back?”

 

She smiled slyly.

 

_“You’ll know”_

 

**——**

 

The peaceful night howled with the winds of the west changing their direction. The full moon shone bright upon the ocean, creating a white sheet on the water with its reflection. There wasn’t a single cloud on the sky.

 

George and I were putting away the newest equipment on the shelves, listening to the waves graciously dancing in the distance…

 

“Lockwood?” I turned back to my colleague. He had stopped what he was doing and was now confusedly looking at the table “So you hear that?”

 

“Hear what, George?”

 

“The singing?” My heart gave a jolt. I closed my eyes and forced my senses to dull their receptiveness and concentrated on my listening, straining to hear even the faintest-

 

_“…like winds in the sea, will you ever return to me?…”_

 

“That voice…” George muttered breathlessly, then looked at me “Lucy”

 

We ran to the clinic’s door and pushed it open.

 

_“…sing with the tide, my love will never die”_

 

It was the most beautiful song we’ve ever heard. It sounded like a million different voices, all sweet like honey and tender like feathers, each in a different pitch varying from low to high, wholly and perfectly synchronized, creating an unearthly acoustic. Otherworldly harmonious. Mystically silvery. Heavenly tuneful.

 

_“Over waves and deep in the blue, I would give up my heart for you”_

 

We walked outside and let the song wash us.

 

_“…I’ll wait to go by, my love will never die”_

 

But where did it came from?

 

_“Come my love be one with the sea, rule with me for eternity!”_

 

The voices resounded in the night, the song turned strong and harsh, giving me a feeling of urgency. I needed to find her.

 

_“…so mercilessly and leave their souls to me!”_

 

We ran along the beach, looking for her familiar shadow.

 

_“Play the song you sang long ago, and wherever the storm may blow…”_

 

The waves hit the sand beneath our feet, our steps fast in a desperate search.

 

_“…we’ll never be apart! Wild and strong you can’t be contained!…”_

 

We saw the dock in the distance.

 

_“Wounds you caused will never mend, and you will never end!”_

 

We arrived to the dock.

 

The voices hushed once more. The night’s wind hooted softly along the final lines of the song.

 

_“Cruel and cold like winds in the sea, will you ever return to me?”_

 

There she sat.

 

_“Hear my voice, sing with the tide; our love will never die”_

 

Her back was turned on us, her hair moving to the song’s finale.

 

“Lucy”

 

She turned around, smiling.

 

“Hello boys”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LApFnTfP8
> 
> used song


	11. Circus AU Locklyle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SO, I’ve accepted it. I did not manage to do the AUgust. Guilty to the bones. Still, what I managed to do was very fun, and there were some days I did manage to write but didn’t post because they weren’t in order, but right now I’ve decided to post those days I do have (and maybe later post any others I might still write because dammit those au’s sound really good) and move on to my other stories and some requests I have been working on.

“Lucy! Lucy, can you hear me? Can you hear me? No, don’t close your eyes, stay with us, Lucy!”

As much as I tried to fight it, I started to feel my energy drain through me, my eyelids dropping farther down with each second. Everything became blurry once again, shadows passing above me, blinded by the light that still shined somewhere above.

“Lucy! Stay with us, Lucy!”

Then everything went black.

**——an hour earlier——**

“Very well done, everyone!” Lockwood exclaimed as we all gathered behind the curtains “Today’s show went magnificently, the people adored us! Let’s finish today’s good work correctly, we’re only missing an hour!”

With that, everyone applauded briefly and then turned back to work. We had just finished our last performance of the day and everyone was exhausted, including myself.

I walked away from the main tent and towards the cages where the animals rested, knowing that a line of people was probably already forming there. Every time a show ended the spectators wanted to take photos with the animals, specially the elephants and the tigers, and for that I had to be present.

My name is Lucy Carlyle and as the circus’s official _(and only)_ beast tamer, if anyone wanted to go near the animals, it was required that I was there to make sure no accident occurred, that no animal went out of control and that no human being tried anything funny around the cages. Normally people were very cautious when being close to the animals and never tried to do anything dangerous. However, it was part of the rules for circuses that took animals with them that whenever civilians were around so has to be the tamer.

All in all, it was a fairly peaceful close down that night; just a few families that wished to take photos with the ballerina horses, a few kids that wanted to see the magician’s puppies and doves and some teenagers that wanted to see the tigers. I wasn’t surprised by any of this, it was all part of a routine, honestly.

So, I fed the animals, cleaned and closed the cages and joined the rest of the crew for dinner. We ate calmly, talking between us about the days events, the things that could be improved for the show and how annoying some of the public can be.

“So, Lucy, you had said you’ve been practicing a new trick with the tigers?” Lockwood asked me. Anthony Lockwood was the Master of Ceremony and the owner of the circus. He had hired me almost two years ago, when the circus had been suffering with the need of fame and costumers. I had been down on my luck and needed a job, and then I found an advertisement asking for someone who could do something out of the ordinary for a performance. I knew I wasn’t fit for that, but anyways applied for the position.

“Yes, they’ve been practicing how to slow dance”

As it turned out, back then the circus’s animals had been tameless: a complete disaster. Even the dogs were barely taken out of their cages, since they would go wild. But when I came, I set an order; I took my job seriously and took care of all the animals, teaching them tricks and anything that could be useful on stage.

“Slow-dancing tigers? The public’ll go crazy!”

After seeing my fruitful work, Lockwood asked me to join the actual performances and make a number with the animals I worked with the most; the tigers. I was very hesitant, but accepted in the end. And how was I in for a surprise.

The people loved my act with the tigers! Seeing them stand on their hind legs, jump through a fiery hoop and do pyramids seemed to get people’s attention the good way.

Our conversation, however, was interrupted by the sounds of distressing horses outside the tent.

“What in the world-”

I walked out to see the horses beside their carriages stomping and neighing fearfully. I made my way to them, noticing how they pulled and bit on the ropes that held them.

“Lucy, what’s going on?” A voice asked behind me. I turned to see George standing close, his clipboard under his arm. My mouth opened but the sound that came from it was drowned and lost under the shrill scream that resounded around us.

Even though distorted by the echo, I knew where the sound came from: the tiger’s cage.

“George, get help!” I ran in the direction of the screams, rounding on tents and carriages. The sound of guttural roaring reached my ears and more ear-piercing screams that made my blood run cold inside me. I felt sweat start to run down my face.

I turned around the last tent and found the tiger’s cage’s doors wide open. A few feet away were a group of teenagers, both guys and girls, all bundled up and trembling, surrounded by a pack of tigers.

The tigers stood in a attacking positions, eyes focused, every muscle ready to leap into action.

“Halt!” I yelled. Eight orange heads turned to see me, fangs bared and eyes gleaming with determination and excitement. As I ran by the equipment that lay near the cage, I grabbed my whip and whistle “Halt!”

Immediately all the tigers stood from their offensive positions and I ran inside their circle, stepping before the teenagers.

“Retreat!”

I flashed the whip before me and the nearest tiger stumbled back, careful so the whip wouldn’t reach its paws. At once the beasts started to walk back to the cage, growling softly in disagreement.

“Bertha, keep walking, don’t make me whip you. Annie, no more staring at them- Solomon, I said no more staring! Keep walking” I thundered the whip in the air and the animals hurried to return to the safety of their cage. One, however, remained standing where it was.

“Skully, I said retreat!” I slashed the whip once more, but the young tiger only roared angrily in my direction. I could hear the teenagers crying and shaking behind me, hugging themselves, looking for comfort.

“Lucy-!” The sound of Lockwood’s voice was drowned when Skully roared again, lifting one claw in the air and batting it in front of himself.

“Skully, retreat to the cage!” Blowing the whistle and slashing the whip once more, I turned slightly to the teens behind me, being careful as to not let the tiger out of my sight “Get up! You have to go!” I barely had time to see as some of my colleagues came up to help the teens when I had to look back at the tiger, who had taken a daring step forward.

Another whip slash.

“Skully! Not another step!” I yelled, sweat sticking to my forehead. The beast was now growling under its breath, tail flashing from one side to the other. It was preparing to jump.

I could hear Lockwood in the distance talking with the kids.

The tiger’s paws shifted on the ground, bending and straightening one way or another.

I too shifted my feet underneath me, a clear display of confidence of my part. I lowered my head and furrowed my brow in what I knew would be an offensive position, legs bent in anticipation. Still, the beast only kept growling, muscles tensing.

_‘GRRRRAAAH!’_

A flash of orange was all I saw before I was pushed full force to the ground.

“LUCY!”

Pain shot through my body as monstrous claws shoved on my chest. A warm fluid oozed from and down me when the beast’s jaw came crushing and closing around my arm and pulled back. I screamed in agony and used my other hand to pat my clothes in search for something I could use to defend myself.

The tiger lifted a paw only to bring it crashing down on my chest again with exceptional strength. I screamed once more. I kept patting on my clothes with my good hand, but there was nothing; no dagger, no knife, nothing that could save my life. My vision clouded with the pain and my mouth shot open in a soundless wail.

Then a loud boom, a roar and then the weight was lifted from my body.

“…thing back…the cage!”

“…she…help!…”

“…Lucy…Holly’s tent!…”

I felt something pull me from the ground, careful enough not to touch my pained limbs but hurried. I could see my vision somewhat clearing as I noticed the red and white tents pass by me. My head rolled to the side where it lay on my taker’s arm. My vision was still blurry, but I would always recognize that flashy red suit and white cravat.

“Lockw…”

Suddenly a light was shined bright before me and I found myself inside somewhere I couldn’t really recognize. I felt the warm body beside me disappear and my vision and hearing started to clear, as well the pain became more strident.

“…clawed her chest and it almost bit her arm off! She needs a medic!”

“George, call for a doctor!”

Hurried steps.

“I’ll see what I can do to clean the wounds” I recognized a dark skinned figure moving about around me and heard it fussing about towels, bandages and ointments. There was another figure there, this one always hovering above my eyes, only recognizable by the bright red that made its clothes.

“What about her arm?”

“I’m not sure I can help with that, but we do have to stop the bleeding” Something was pressed down on my limb, soft but stingy and uncomfortable “Don’t move it and keep pressure on it or she’ll loose too much blood”

“A doctor is on his way” Another voice said, once colored with familiar hostility, now it seemed to be nothing other than concerned, but it could be an effect of the immense amount of pain my body was in.

“Lucy, can you hear us?”

My breathing hitched.

“Lucy! Lucy, can you hear me? Can you hear me? No, don’t close your eyes, stay with us, Lucy!”

As much as I tried to fight it, I started to feel my energy drain through me, my eyelids dropping farther down with each second. Everything became blurry once again, shadows passing above me, blinded by the light that still shined somewhere above.

“Lucy! Stay with us, Lucy!”

Then everything went black.

**————**

The first thing to happen was that I could feel once again. I felt my eyelids closed. I felt myself wrapped in a soft cloth. I felt the light on my face. I felt the residues of pain left in my body, so soft I could barely call it pain. And I felt the extra weight on the bed I was in.

I opened my eyes carefully, taking in my surroundings slowly. I was inside a carriage, though not my carriage. I had been placed in a bed. There was a wardrobe and a boudoir to the far corner and the walls were decorated with old circus flyers.

Sitting on the farthest end of the bed was my boss, Lockwood. He was hunched forward, head held on his hands. He had changed from his master of ceremony’s suit into his favorite blue coat and black slacks.

I moved my arm to try and sit up, but only one of my arms responded to my command, the other was overcome with pain and so stayed where it was. I groaned as the throbbing limb flashed stars before my eyes, however, my groan made Lockwood look up from his hands.

“Luce?” He stood from the bed and helped me sit up “Here, drink this”

He passed me a glass of water, which I downed without a second thought. After placing it back on the table it had been resting, he sat back down on the bed.

“How are you feeling?” His voice was hushed, a slight vulnerable hint hiding behind it.

“Like a chewing toy” I joked, my voice raspy and hoarse making my throat ache. Lockwood, however, didn’t laugh.

“Does anything hurt?” He asked.

“No” Lockwood looked me in the eyes as if searching for something. Then he sighed heavily.

“The doctor said the claws made various holes on your chest, but none of them was critically deep and that they’ll all heal soon. Also, when the tiger pushed you it broke two of your ribs; you had some internal bleeding, but he managed to stop it” He breathed in profoundly “Also, he said your arm will be alright, but that it’ll probably keep a scar. You should be able to go back to working in two weeks”

“Nothing too new then” I said gazing at my bandaged arm. Lockwood still looked at me for a few more seconds before standing.

“Lockwood” I called, my good arm reaching forward to grab his coat. He stopped on his tracks and turned his head back to me. We both remained silent for a few seconds “What did you do to him?”

“…he was taken to another cage” He said “A special contention one”

I let the air out of my lungs, relieved.

“Was he hurt?”

“We did had to shot his hind leg to get him off you” He turned away “I’m still considering what to do with him”

“He just needs a week on confinement and less food rations” I said “That should be enough to teach him-”

“ _‘Should be’_?!” Lockwood turned around and took one stride back to the bed, his expression worried and discontent “Lucy, that thing attacked you last night! It tried to eat your arm! It was like it’d completely forgotten about you”

“Skully is an animal, Lockwood” I said “He doesn’t think like we do”

“You used to fed him with baby bottles!” He exclaimed, looking at me like I was mad “You’ve been raising him, training him everyday for the last two years! And suddenly he doesn’t recognize you? Suddenly he wants to play the smart one and try to attack you?”

“He is a tiger, for God’s sake! A full grown tiger, and what he did was a natural response of all animals!”

“How in the world is what he did a ‘natural response’?”

“He is grown so he wants to take control, thus he attacked the leader of the pack, tried to overthrow them” I explained, my good hand pointing at myself “Even us humans do that, Lockwood”

“If he was confidante enough to try it once, then he’ll try it again, Lucy! He is dangerous!”

“He won’t try again, Lockwood. Once he suffers the punishment of defying my authority, he’ll understand where his position is!”

“He tried to get to those teens”

“They let them out of the cage; Skully would have never attacked them if they hadn’t opened the cage!”

“He is a dangerous animal, Lucy! He represents a threat to everyone who works and comes to this circus; we ought to shoot him!”

“No, Lockwood, he only needs to be trained harder! I’ll make my best to make him-!”

“That won’t be necessary” Lockwood said, his eyes shinning with new resolve “You won’t have to care for him any longer. He won’t be hurting anyone else”

“Lockwood…?”

“He’ll be taken care of in the afternoon” He turned around, coat swishing behind him. The blood drained from my face.

“No, Lockwood, please don’t have him killed!” I yelled, my hand now gripping what little of his hand it could reach in a futile attempt to stop him “I can make him understand-!”

“I won’t let it get near you anymore, Luce”

“Why?!”

“Because I care for you too much!” He bellowed, his voice resounding on the carriage, making me flinch back “I cannot stand aside and watch you walk around with that animal any longer, Lucy. From the beginning, I knew tigers are dangerous animals, but I never realized just which lengths they could go. He almost killed you in front of us!” Lockwood’s eyes were wild as he looked at me, heavy tears now sliding carefree down his cheeks “Right in front of us, Lucy, do you think we want that? Do you think we wanted to see that, heh? Do you think I want to see someone so important to me die in the claws of a brainless beast?!”

I was rendered speechless at the look of absolute vulnerability and openness of feelings on my boss’s face. His red eyes, his floppy hair, his tear-tracked cheeks, the absolute pain-twisted grin on his trembly lips.

“One thing is to die, Lucy” He muttered “But another completely different thing is to offer yourself as sacrifice in front of the people who care for you”

“…but, Lockwood…” The words struggled in my throat “It is my job…what will I do if I…don’t train the animals…?”

“There’s still plenty of other animals in this circus” He walked softly back to where I sat in the bed and sat beside me “And there are other tigers, calmer tigers, in our cage”

“Lockwood, please…don’t shoot Skully,…he just needs more time, his still young after all…” Gazing directly into my arms, Lockwood pushed himself forward and surrounded me with his arms, softly as to not cause me any pain “I was there when he was born,…I saw- I saw him give his…his first steps,…I can’t let you- kill him!…not when I can help it…” I sobbed a little as I remembered that baby tiger I used to carry around the circus’ grounds, the one that I’d feed with a milk bottle everyday. The one that tried to hurt me last night.

“Will you be safe if we let him live?” Lockwood whispered in my ear, making whatever blood remained on my body to run to my face.

“I can’t promise you that, but I can promise to try” I muttered.

He let go and looked down at the mattress. After a few seconds of silence, he looked up to me and made a small, lopsided smile.

“Guess that’s better than nothing” He said. I smiled back at him and lifted my good arm to dry his remaining tears with my thumb.

“I’ve been injured by my job before, Lockwood. ’tis but a scratch” I assured him, making the accent I used to talk with before leaving my hometown “I’ve suffered worse”

His eyes widened a bit with that, no doubt trying and failing not to imagine what that entailed.

“Ok, so you think one week in confinement and less food should do it?” He asked while he sniffed. I let a smile grow on my face.

“Yes, that should get him to understand, if not, then one more week”

Lockwood and I discussed about all the security measures that could be needed to take in case Skully ever tried something else. We were almost there for two hours! In the end Holly entered the room to see how I was doing and was pleased to see I was awake _(less pleased with Lockwood not letting the others know I had awoken approximately two hours ago)_ and said that I needed to get more rest if I wanted my body to heal properly.

I was then taken to my own carriage, where my horse, Rapier, awaited for me. He laid his head through the little window and watched as I was laid on my bed, and as Lockwood said goodbye to me, promising with a smile that when I woke up Skully would be in confinement and alive.

And even after our fight I believed him. He promised it with the most sincere smile I had ever seen.


	12. Friends With Benefits AU Cubblyle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW. This is the first time I write something like this, so it may be a little awkward. READ ON YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE.

Ok, I didn’t plan this. I never thought about it, I never considered things would end up this way. But they did.

 

It all started after the Fittes building burned down. Some people saw it as some terrible tragedy, but for us it was an enormous relief. It came with many shocks for all of us; Lockwood finding out what he wanted to do after ghosts finally stopped appearing _(he found himself to be deeply intrigued by a detective’s work),_ and dragging us along him of course, and Holly and Quill starting to date, but the biggest surprise to me was George. Well, him and Flo, actually: they started dating too.

 

That wasn’t even the surprise factor, though; it was how well their relationship worked. But I didn’t dwell on their private life, I had better things to do, like focusing on my own boyfriend _(no, Lockwood was not my boyfriend)_. Things were going incredibly fine for us; we were doing amazingly as private detectives, besides Holly and Quill were getting married!

 

It was a beautiful celebration; Holly asked me to be her bridesmaid along her old roommate, I went with my boyfriend, Florian _(who was a terrific dancer by the way)_ , Lockwood invited his girlfriend, a nice girl named Evelyn who once worked at Grimble, and George and Flo went together and actually danced a slow song! And let me say it, they did not danced so badly, and I had seen some pretty terrible dancers in my life _(some of my sisters for example)_.

 

But the thing is, like a lot of other things, soon it came crashing down; Flo and George broke up after a two-years long relationship. A very nasty ending to be honest, even though I never got to know the entire deal of details. I never knew if it affected Flo, after all she was the one who decided they needed to break up, but for George, it was like the world came shattering on top of him. He locked himself on his room. He didn’t want to come out or talk with anyone. 

Lockwood and I thought it would be best to leave him alone for a while, but when a while became a week, we both knew it had to end. George hadn’t abandoned his room at all! If he ate anything that week, we never knew. At first we both tried to convince him the nice way of coming out, some bribing with donuts, trips to the library, and other things we knew he liked to get him out, but George didn’t budged.

 

So, I got tired of waiting. I went to his room and kicked open the door. I’m glad I did, for what I found there wouldn’t have remained alive for many days if it remained there; George was thinner than I ever saw him, unbathed, smelly and there were some suspicious-looking things in his room I knew were not sanitary at all.

 

And, God, I am still grateful that Lockwood was out of the house with Evelyn that day. What happened next was the worse confrontation I ever had with George, in so many levels. I’m not sure how it even started, all I knew was that he couldn’t go on like this: he had to move on, but the asshole was so mulish about how he could never go on without Flo. We yelled at each other so much and about so many things, but I can’t remember a single one of them, except that I told George he had to look for someone else.

 

Then it happened. Before we knew it, before we thought it, before we understood what was going on with us, it happened.

 

George kissed me.

 

Once upon another, any other time I would have pushed him away. I had a boyfriend, after all. But I didn’t. He kissed me with such passion. With such fervor. Such fury. Such warmth, I just couldn’t pull away from him. In that kiss I tasted everything; his anger, his frustration, his excitement, his agony. It was like if he had opened himself as a book to me in the form of a kiss. Suddenly, somehow, some why, I understood. I understood him and his pain.

 

So I kissed him back. Again. And again and again and once more I kissed him and he kissed me. And, oh, how he touched me, and, heavens, how I felt him. And he embraced me, held me, took me. And I let him. Oh, did I let him.

 

And dear God in heaven, will I ever regret what we did, because I still don’t regret it; I haven’t regretted it a single day since it happened and I don’t know if I ever will. We had sex. 

Angry, venting but amazing sex. The way he made me feel, the look in his eyes when he had me. The long hours spent in his room. The things that came out of our mouths. Everything was kept between him and me.

 

After that, George went back to his bitchy, sarcastic self, helping on investigations and solving murders with Lockwood and I. He seemed totally forgotten about what happened with Flo, and that was great for us. 

However, he wasn’t forgotten about me. Oh, no he _wasn’t_.

 

**——————**

 

“Lucy”

 

I closed the door with my keys and looked at the blond man that stood on the parlor’s door archway. His glasses shone with the sunlight that came from the windows, making it difficult to see his blue eyes. You could tell he was a little overweight by his clothes and pudgy appearance, but it had been a long time since I’ve given that a single thought.

 

“You’re finally back” He uttered cooly. I left my purse and coat on the rack beside the door, then slowly, ever so slowly walked up to him.

 

“Yes, I arrived last night” My voice was a hoarse whisper, even though my throat wasn’t hurting, but that was the way he affected me. He was taller than me, by a little less than a head, actually. His blond hair fell tousled around his head, on his forehead and close to his eyes. His steely-blue gaze ruthlessly held mine, like if I was in ghost-lock. I smiled gently and lifted the pie I had been holding in my hands “I brought you something”

 

His hand was on my hair faster than I could notice, pulling my head back with just enough force to make me tingle. His other arm coming to my waist and pulling me close to him, my hands moving to keep the dessert safe.

 

“Enough foreplay” He said, his voice a deep, guttural whisper and his face coming close to my ear, his lips brushing on my skin “This days have been… _so_ long. Now that you’re back Luce, we can catch up”

 

“I was just gone a week, George” I whispered, pushing the pie to a nearby shelf and softly caressing his shoulders “I would think you’d know how to control yourself”

 

“You know I don’t. God, how I’ve missed you” He kissed me feverishly, the frustration he was carrying coming off. I kissed him back eagerly, feeling his hands sneak down my back. I gasped excitedly.

 

“I’ve missed you too”

 

**——**

 

“And here I was thinking you’d have gotten rusty”

 

“With how much you and I do this? No way” George and I lay down on the bed, wrapped around blankets and each other’s arms, covered in sweat and _other things._ We were both panting blissfully and regaining our breath “You aren’t tired are you?”

 

“Tired?” George scoffed, arms coming to my ass and pulling me on top of him, a mischievous look on his eyes “We’ve got a week to make up for, I hope your pussy’s prepared for what it has coming, ‘cause I’ve been planning this weekend since you left and I’m not stopping for some _petty_ excuse as ‘tiredness’”

 

“Oh, you bet its ready; I’ve been needing this since before I left” I placed a kiss on his cheek, then another one and another one, down his neck and chest “You know how much I need you” I panted as his hands roamed my back in a ghosting manner, making my muscles tingle pleasurably-

 

“Hey, George, are you- WHAT IN THE-” I jumped from where I sat on top George to the bed, his hand immediately pulling on the bed’s covers, holding them up so that it’d cover my body. After hastily making sure the mattress covered me, we both looked at the person that stood at the door; Lockwood.

 

“Lockwood, what are you doing here?” The blond man asked carefully after a few minutes of silence. Lockwood looked at us with bewilderment from where he stood, his hands on the door and the frame in a manner that suggested he wouldn’t be able to hold himself much longer. His eyes raced back and forward on the room, taking in the disorder; clothes everywhere, shoes, _other things_.

 

“I sent you a text” The taller, dark haired man finally said. He lifted his phone from his pocket “About an hour ago; I told you I’d be coming over to your place” George grinned at me and I felt my blood rushing to my face.

 

“Well that explains why I didn’t saw it, I was _busy with stuff_ ”

 

“OH MY- GOD!” Lockwood turned around and covered his face with his hands, his feet moving to walk away.

 

“Lockwood, wait!” I ran out of the bed, taking one of George’s discarded shirts and putting it on, trying my best to do the buttons correctly “Let us explain, please”

 

A few minutes later, I was sitting on the kitchen’s table with the two men, one on my side and the other in front of me. I was still only wearing the shirt I took form the floor and George had taken an undershirt and his trousers from where I had thrown them aside an hour ago in our little rush. We sat in silence for some time, hot cups of tea sitting on the table, trying to think of what to say, with Lockwood still covering his face with his hands. So, I decided to get it over with.

 

“Lockwood” I started “What you saw-”

 

“I don’t even know if what I saw were your boobs or George’s chest, Lucy!” Lockwood exclaimed, his hands finally leaving his face. The blush returned to my face at the thought of Lockwood seeing me, however George just scoffed into the cup.

 

“Well, it is hard to tell apart” He muttered. I elbowed him on the ribs in attempt to get some of his sense of decorum back, though I know that was less than likely. He was actually greatly enjoying this.

 

“Just tell me” The dark haired man said carefully, placing both hands on the table as if to steady himself, his face a practiced mask of patience. He looked at both of us again, his eyes deep, obviously looking into us for the truth “How long have you been doing this?”

 

“Well, I’m not sure how to say this-”

 

“Since Flo and I broke up”

 

“-that’s definitely not how I would have said it”

 

“What?!” Lockwood looked at us like if we were mad “Its been years since that!” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He fell back on the chair and his hands came to his face once again but swiftly returned to the table “So you’re telling me, that-”

 

“Lucy and I have been fucking each other for almost four years? Yeah” George said still looking careless over about or present predicament.

 

“Lockwood, listen-”

 

“For what exactly do we have a ‘no secrets about our present’ rule if you guys are not going to follow it?!” Lockwood yelled exasperated “This is the kind of thing that we shouldn’t keep from each other! Besides,” He looked at me accusingly “Lucy, you’re married to Kurt! You have a daughter, for God’s sake, Lucy! You’ve been cheating on your husband!”

 

“Lockwood, how I manage my relationship is not your business” I replied, my voice raising a little as well as my temper “Besides, if you were the one married to him, you’d understand my situation; the man can’t last longer than ten minutes, I swear!” 

 

“I’m- I'm sorry Lucy, its just...” Lockwood was at loss of words, which was a hard to accomplish, his eyes coming back and ford between me and George “Why are you doing this? If you and George like each other, why didn’t you guys marry each other?” To this we both scoffed.

 

“We don’t like each other romantically, Lockwood” George chuckled.

 

“Yeah, we’re just friends with benefits” At this, Lockwood remained silent for a few minutes, and so did we, allowing him to take it all in and to process it. After a few minutes his mouth opened as if to say something else, but he closed it once more, a reflective look on his features. Again, he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, seemingly insecure about what he wanted to say, but finally, in a soft, secretive manner, he asked:

 

“…are you certain that…Rosie is Kurt’s daughter…?”

 

“Well, Lockwood, of course I bloody am!” I shouted out, my temper getting the best of me, my cheeks red in anger at what my friend was now implying “You think George and I just go about carelessly doing as we please? We take precautions, we plan ahead, we don’t leave everything at random!”

 

“Besides” George said, now with a serious look on his face “A DNA test was taken just in case; she is Kurt’s daughter all right” Again, Lockwood looked at both of us, a troubled look on his face, like a mother accepting her child is not what she wished they were: not necessarily in a good or bad manner, just begrudgingly understanding.

 

“Ok” He finally said “Ok, so you guys do this, I don’t think its the best thing you could do, but, you guys are adults, and I trust you guys to be responsible. I guess you don’t want me to tell anyone?”

 

“If you please” I smiled.

 

“Now, Lockwood” George said “In case you don’t have any other questions, I think you should go”

 

“What?” The other man questioned.

 

“We were kind of in the middle of something here!” George exclaimed “Unless you want us to continue our session in front of you!”

 

“Good Lord, no!” With that, Lockwood stood from his chair, quickly said goodbye and walked out and way from George’s house. George and I still sat in the kitchen, silently listening to the sound of a car’s engine turn on and then vanish in the distance, still in our makeshift clothing, our disarrayed hair and our dry-sweat covered bodies.

 

“This is a bad idea” I finally said.

 

“What?”

 

“Me and you; its a very bad idea, you know. Always has been” I looked at George. At his steely eyes, blond hair and disheveled appearance I loved so much “A very risky, dangerous, bad idea we should have gotten rid of many years ago” He only scoffed amusedly, however.

 

“Why, because of what Lockwood said? Because of your husband? Because of our job?” We stood from our seats and he inched closer to me, his face so close his glasses could have poked my eye _(if we hadn’t years of practice at how to avoid that)_ , his hot breath on my cheek “Because we are not married in the eyes of society?” His teeth grazed my skin and I felt him bite at my ear, pulling softly on it in that suggestive manner of his “ _So what?_ ” He spat those words in my ear.

 

“Its a very _good_ bad idea” I muttered breathily, my eyes rolling to the back of my head. I heard George chuckle deeply in his throat beside me.

 

“Shall we continue where we left?”

 

“How about we start all over again?”

 

“Well, if you’re that desperate for me to eat you out, Luce, you can just tell me”


End file.
